SpaceX’s Starship Explodes in Texas During Preflight Testing

The SpaceX spaceship explodes in Texas during the leading tests

By Mike Wall & Space.com

The last spacecraft vehicle in SpaceX has just smoked.

The company was testing a higher stage of starship on its Starbase site in southern Texas on Wednesday evening (June 18), to prepare for the next Megarot flight test.

But something went very badly, because the video captured by nasaspaceflight.com shows: the vehicle exploded, sending a massive fire ball in the sky of black Texas.

On the support of scientific journalism

If you appreciate this article, plan to support our award -winning journalism by subscription. By buying a subscription, you help to ensure the future of striking stories about discoveries and ideas that shape our world today.

SpaceX recognized the incident in a post early Thursday morning (June 19), noting that it occurred around 11 p.m. local time (midnight EDT and 0400 GMT on June 19).

“A clear safety area around the site has been maintained throughout the operation and all the staff are safe and taken into account,” added SpaceX in the position. “Our Starbase team is actively working on the security of the test site and immediate surroundings in collaboration with local officials. There is no danger for residents of the surrounding communities, and we ask individuals that individuals do not try to approach the area while the security operations continue.”

SpaceX develops Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, to help humanity to colonize Mars, among other ambitious exploration tasks.

The vehicle consists of two elements, both designed to be completely and quickly reusable – a booster on the first floor called Super Heavy and a spaceship with upper stage 171 feet high (52 meters) known as Starship, or simply.

It was a ship that exploded Wednesday evening, on a test stand on the Massey site in Starbase (not the orbital launch medium, from which the takeoffs of starship occur). According to NASASPACEFLIGHT, which closely monitors Starship activity in Starbase, the anomaly occurred just before the ship was set to perform a static shooting test.

Static fires are common pre-predication tests, in which the engines of a rocket are briefly inflamed while the vehicle remains anchored on the ground. SpaceX had already led a static fire with this ship, although this trial implies only one of its raptor engines; This test was perhaps intended to pull the six.

SpaceX has also already pulled the Flight 10 Super Heavy Booster, successfully igniting the 33 of its Raptors.

The explosion on Wednesday evening continued a series of setbacks for the upper stars of starship. The ship separated on the last three starship test flights, which was launched in January, March and May this year.

On flight 7 and flight 8, “unforeseen quick dismantling” occurred less than 10 minutes after takeoff. The ship stole much further on flight 9; SpaceX lost contact with the vehicle about 46 minutes after takeoff, and its rooms are probably based on the seabed of the Indian Ocean.

Super Heavy worked better. On flight 7 and flight 8, for example, the Booster returned to Starbase after the launch for a dramatic socket of the “Chopstick” arms of the launch tower. The Flight 7 Super Heavy again flew over flight 9, by winning an important reuscitability step for the Starship program. (SpaceX did not try to recover the booster on flight 9, and he separated when he came for a “hard splash” planned in the Gulf of Mexico.)

SpaceX is still looking for what happened in flight 9, a survey supervised by the American Federal Aviation. There was therefore not yet an official target launch date for Starship Flight 10 – and, if there had been, it should now be revised after the events on Wednesday evening.

Copyright 2025 Space.comA future business. All rights reserved. This material cannot be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.