Key words
- SpaceX says rocket was preparing for the tenth flight test
- There are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities: SpaceX
- Starship 36 suffered catastrophic failure: Cameron County authorities
ISLAMABAD: One of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starships exploded during a routine test late Wednesday in Texas, law enforcement said, adding that no one was injured.
The Starship 36 suffered “catastrophic failure and exploded” at the Starbase launch facility shortly after 11:00 pm (0400 GMT Thursday), a Facebook post by the Cameron County authorities said.
Musk’s SpaceX said the rocket was preparing for the tenth flight test when it “experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase”.
On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11 p.m. CT, the Starship preparing for the tenth flight test experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase. A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 19, 2025
“A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for,” SpaceX added on social media.
“There are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities, and we ask that individuals do not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue.”
Starbase on the south Texas coast, near the border with Mexico, is the headquarters for Musk’s space project.
World’s largest rocket
Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall, Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket and central to Musk’s long-term vision of colonising Mars.
The latest setback follows an explosion of a prototype Starship over the Indian Ocean in late May.
The biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built had lifted off on May 27 from the Starbase facility, but the first-stage Super Heavy booster blew up instead of executing its planned splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
The previous two outings also ended poorly, with the upper stage disintegrating over the Caribbean.
Failure
In March, SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space minutes after lifting off from Texas, prompting the FAA to halt air traffic in parts of Florida, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket programme, Reuters reported.
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.
