Hours after Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin completed its first orbital mission, SpaceX made headlines again on Thursday as its latest test of Starship, its Gargantuan next-generation mega rocket, resulted in a dramatic splashdown of the upper stage over the Atlantic. Ended up disintegrating.
In terms of sheer excitement, Elon Musk’s company did not disappoint, underscoring its technological prowess for the second time by holding the first stage booster in the “chopstick” arms of its launch tower.
But the victory was short-lived when the teams lost contact with the upper stage vehicle. SpaceX later confirmed that it had occurred due to “rapid unscheduled disassembly”, the company’s euphemism for the explosion.
A longer, upgraded version of the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built launched for its seventh test at 4:37 p.m. (2237 GMT) from the company’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
The gleaming prototype rocket is key to Musk’s ambitions to colonize Mars, while NASA hopes to use a modified version as a manned lunar lander.
About seven minutes after liftoff, the Super Heavy booster decelerated to supersonic speed – generating a sonic boom – before landing gracefully into the waiting arms of the launch tower, drawing applause from ground control teams.
The maneuver was first executed successfully in October, but not in November, when the Super Heavy made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
However, shortly after the latest booster catch, announcers on a live webcast confirmed that the upper stage vehicle was lost due to a propulsion anomaly.
The FlightAware tracker showed several planes changing course in the Atlantic near the Turks and Caicos Islands, while users on X shared dramatic footage that reportedly captured the spacecraft breaking into a fiery waterfall during atmospheric reentry .
“Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!” Musk wrote on Instagram while sharing a clip. He said the cause of the explosion appeared to be “oxygen/fuel leakage” and the company would take corrective action.
“The aircraft was briefly slowed and diverted around the area where spacecraft debris was falling,” a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told the agency.
good wishes
Ahead of the SpaceX launch, Blue Origin’s giant New Glenn rocket reached orbital space for the first time, marking a potential turning point in the commercial space race.
SpaceX has long dominated orbital launches with its Falcon 9 rocket, winning contracts from private companies, the Pentagon and NASA.
In contrast, Blue Origin was limited to short hop suborbital flights with its smaller New Shepard rocket – but now looks likely to chip away at SpaceX’s market share.
Although the two tech giants have had a contentious past, Musk congratulated Bezos “on reaching orbit on the first try” and a few hours later Bezos returned the goodwill.
“Good luck today @elonmusk and the entire SpaceX team!!” The Amazon founder wrote on X.
Meanwhile outgoing NASA chief Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX for the booster catch, saying: “Spaceflight is not easy.”
For this flight, SpaceX announced that it had made several upgrades, and increased the size of the Starship to 123 meters long. New Glen was 98 meters long.
While its Falcon rockets remain a consistent workhorse, SpaceX has made clear that it sees Starship as its future.
The first three test flights ended in dramatic explosions, resulting in the destruction of the vehicles. However, SpaceX has worked quickly on its design, reflecting its “fail fast, learn fast” philosophy.
Musk is now aiming to dramatically increase the frequency of tests, requesting permission from the FAA to conduct 25 tests in 2025 compared to just four in 2024.
The agency is holding public meetings on potential environmental and regulatory concerns amid allegations that SpaceX is damaging ecologically sensitive areas and violating wastewater rules.
But with Musk now part of Trump’s inner circle, the billionaire may get an easier path under the incoming administration.
Meanwhile, Bezos and fellow tech mogul Mark Zuckerberg are set to attend the president-elect’s inauguration on Monday, a sign of warming relations.