Video: Elon Musks Mars rocket dreams take another hit after SpaceX Starship explodes again – The Tribune-OxBig News Network

SpaceX launched the eighth test of its Starship rocket on Thursday, successfully conducting and completing the “catch” of the Super Heavy booster. However, the Starship broke apart less than 10 minutes into the flight, New York Post reported.

This has caused the FAA to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket programme.

Several videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the dusk skies near south Florida and the Bahamas after Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the mission showed.

Is that space X rocket disintegration #spacex pic.twitter.com/apEagPIqDB

— Talha Mirza (@tmirza777) March 6, 2025

The back-to-back mishaps occurred in early mission phases that SpaceX has easily surpassed previously, a setback for a programme Musk has sought to speed up this year.

Is that space X rocket disintegration #spacex pic.twitter.com/apEagPIqDB

— Talha Mirza (@tmirza777) March 6, 2025

In a post on X, SpaceX stated, “During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.” “We will review the data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause. As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability,” it added.

During the live stream of the flight, nearly 1 million viewers witnessed as the ship apparently went out of control before the cameras completely cut out. The starship was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean. However, videos that surfaced on social media showed flaming debris of Starship 8 in the night sky over the Atlantic Ocean, with users in Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas awestruck at the glistening wreckage as it crashed towards Earth, New York Post reported.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, flights at several Florida airports were temporarily grounded on Thursday due to “space launch debris.” Elon Musk’s company SpaceX lost contact with Starship 8 before it was able to deploy its test satellites, which were scheduled to occur at the 17-minute mark.

Earlier on Monday, SpaceX postponed its eighth test of the Starship rocket just before its scheduled launch. The launch was delayed after a flight hold was placed due to a Super Heavy booster issue that was not resolved in time for launch, New York Post reported.

The spacecraft was scheduled to take off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in Texas. However, computers flagged a booster issue when just 23 minutes were left in the countdown.

SpaceX described the failure in technical terms.

The Starship failure in January ended eight minutes into flight when the rocket exploded, raining debris over Caribbean islands and causing minor damage to a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Starship was aiming to make nearly a full orbit around Earth and reenter over the Indian Ocean for a splashdown, simulating a landing sequence that SpaceX wants to soon carry out on land as a key next phase of the rocket’s development.

With agencies inputs