US grounds SpaceX’s Starship after test flight explosion

The US has grounded SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket while an investigation investigates why it exploded during its latest flight.

The rocket’s upper stage disintegrated and disintegrated in the Caribbean after takeoff from Texas on Thursday, forcing the airliner to change course to avoid falling debris.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it is working with SpaceX and other authorities to verify reports of damage to civilian property in the Turks and Caicos Islands. There were no reports of injuries.

Elon Musk’s company has been told to conduct a “serious” investigation by the space agency, who will review the findings before deciding whether the Starship can return.

The FAA confirmed that it had opened a “debris response area” to reduce the number of flights out of the area where there was garbageor stop the plane from leaving the place of departure.

It added that several flights requested to be diverted due to fuel shortages while being kept outside the affected area.

The Star is the largest, most powerful rocket ever built, and is critical to Musk’s plans to colonize Mars.

Thursday’s uneventful launch was Starship’s seventh test mission, and the first involving the long, high-altitude version of the rocket.

The Starship platform, two meters (6.56 ft) taller than previous versions, was a “new-generation spaceship with significant changes”, SpaceX said before the launch.

It was caused by a controlled explosion in the Indian Ocean about an hour from Boca Chica, Texas.

The Starship system lifted off at 17:38 EST (22:38 GMT) and the upper stage separated from the Super Heavy booster about four minutes before it flew as planned.

But SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on a live stream that the mission teams had lost contact with the spacecraft.

The Super Heavy booster managed to return to its launch pad about seven minutes after liftoff as planned, prompting ground control teams to explode.

SpaceX later confirmed that the upper part was done “in a hasty unplanned disassembly”.

In his X radio interview, Musk said “initial indications” were that the problem was linked to “an oxygen/fuel leak from a hole in the top of the engine’s afterburner”.

The billionaire added that “nothing indicates the launch of next month”.

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket – called Starship – is 123m (403ft) tall and is designed to be reusable, the company says.

NASA hopes to use a modified version of the rocket as a lunar lander to return to the Moon.

In the future, Musk wants Starship to make long trips to Mars and back — about a nine-month trip each way.

Thursday’s Starship test launch came hours after the first flight of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket system, sponsored by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

It was a big step for Bezos and his company, which has been going on for years to send a rocket into orbit.

Bezos and Musk both want to dominate the car market.