SpaceX’s Starship Explodes During Ascent: A Setback for Space & Astronomy

The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s Starship ended dramatically with an explosion when the vehicle’s upper stage “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn” over the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shared a video capturing the event, showcasing debris lighting up the sky. During the company’s live webcast, Dan Huot from SpaceX’s communications team mentioned that they “saw engines dropping out on telemetry” towards the end of the ascent burn, ultimately losing contact with the Ship, which refers to the upper stage of the vehicle. Following the incident, SpaceX stated in a tweet that they will thoroughly review the data from this test to determine the cause of the explosion.

In response to the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an advisory alerting pilots to potential falling debris in certain areas. Prior to the test, SpaceX had stated that the mission was designed to “launch a new generation ship with significant upgrades” and was intended to carry out Starship’s first payload deployment test using 10 Starlink simulators.

Despite the loss of the Starship’s upper stage, the test was still deemed partially successful. The Ship’s Raptor engines ignited during the ascent burn, although the ground team lost contact approximately 8 minutes into the flight. Additionally, SpaceX successfully recovered the Super Heavy booster, catching the vehicle’s first stage with mechanical arms on its Starbase launch tower.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at Engadget.