By Jackie Wattles, CNN
Debris from the SpaceX Starship seen in the sky near Providenciales, Turks and Caicos. Photo: AFP / GREG BLEE
Regulators are looking into reports of property damage in the island nation of Turks and Caicos caused by debris falling after a SpaceX Starship vehicle exploded over the ocean during a test mission on Thursday (local time), according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Flights of the spacecraft and rocket system are now grounded pending an investigation into the mishap, the agency confirmed in a Friday statement. The FAA said it has not received any reports of injuries related to the incident.
Authorities routinely halt flights of rockets to carry out what is referred to as a "mishap investigation" when launches and flights do not go according to plan.
SpaceX will lead the investigation, as the company confirmed yesterday, and the FAA will then issue a list of corrective actions that the company needs to take in order to get Starship back on the launchpad for another test flight.
The SpaceX vehicle disintegrated on Thursday partway through the seventh uncrewed test flight of the rocket system - about 10 minutes into a mission that launched out of South Texas. A shower of debris prompted the FAA to briefly create a "Debris Response Area" that forced planes to reroute, causing a string of travel delays.
The FAA implements such a response area only when debris from a rocket mishap falls outside of predefined hazard areas that are closed to aircraft, according to the agency.
However, SpaceX asserted in a Thursday statement that "surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area". (Initially, the statement described debris as falling "into the Atlantic Ocean" - but the language was amended by Friday afternoon to remove that phrase.)
When asked to clarify what constituted a "hazard area" and which locations were closed to air traffic during launch, the FAA said that its "investigation is ongoing" and "information is preliminary and subject to change". The agency added that the amount of airspace closed for rocket launches can vary from launch to launch depending on a variety of factors, including the safety record of the launch vehicle.
After Starship exploded on Thursday, photos and videos flooded social media, showing debris that glowed bright orange and white as it streaked across the sky. Much of the footage was captured from Turks and Caicos or cruise ships and other islands in the surrounding area.
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, told CNN his analysis of Starship's trajectory showed that the vehicle likely exploded "over Bahamas, (with) debris passing over Turks and Caicos a couple minutes later at 120 km altitude".
"Debris probably fell a few minutes after (that) in the sea north of Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands," he said.
The FAA said in its statement on Friday that the agency was working alongside SpaceX and local authorities to investigate reports of debris striking Turks and Caicos. CNN has also reached out to the local government and emergency responders.
SpaceX is asking members of the public who may find a piece of debris not to handle the object, but to contact local authorities or the company.
A fiery mishap
SpaceX has been aggressively pursuing a test and development campaign since 2023 in an effort to hash out the design of its Starship launch system, which consists of two parts: The Super Heavy rocket booster, which gives the initial burst of power at liftoff and the Starship spacecraft that rides atop it.
SpaceX recovered the Super Heavy booster after launch on Thursday - guiding it to a precision landing back at the launchpad. After separating from Super Heavy a few minutes into flight, the Starship fires up its own engines and continues its own journey - one that, this time, it did not survive.
SpaceX is known to embrace fiery mishaps during test flights, as the company favours launching relatively cheap prototypes to learn quickly rather than relying on extensive ground testing and simulations.
Eventually, SpaceX aims to send Starship to orbit to drop off satellites or carry convoys of people to the moon or Mars. But on Thursday's test flight, the vehicle was slated to travel a suborbital trajectory and splash down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch - following a path similar to those it has taken on the last several demonstration missions.
Starship has attempted controlled landings in the Indian Ocean on the last several flights. But on Thursday, SpaceX said it was testing substantial "upgrades" to the vehicle that included larger fuel tanks that stretched its size by 2 metres, a new flight computer and changes to the vehicle's avionics.
For the first several minutes, the mission appeared to be going smoothly, as Starship fired up its six engines after separating from Super Heavy. About five minutes later, however, one of Starship's engines flamed out.
By the 8 minute, 30 second mark - five of the six engines were offline. SpaceX's Dan Huot and Kate Tice, who hosted a webcast of the test flight, confirmed about 10 minutes later that the Starship spacecraft was lost.
Starship's future
It's not clear whether the mishap investigation will force significant delays for Starship testing.
Explosive accidents during Starship test flights have occurred in the past, particularly early in the test campaign. But most of the "rapid unscheduled disassemblies" - as SpaceX calls the explosive accidents - have occurred closer to launch or designated landing sites. Those mishaps have also prompted investigations that left Starship grounded for weeks.
Notably, the explosion that occurred on Thursday happened less than midway through Starship's flight path over an area that is speckled with populated islands.
FAA-related delays with Starship have frequently drawn Musk's ire.
Musk appeared to signal on Thursday that he did not anticipate significant delays, despite the Starship loss. He said in one social media post that, based on a "preliminary" look at the problem, "Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month."
Early analysis "indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship, leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly", SpaceX said in a statement.
It's unclear how Musk's role in the incoming presidential administration may affect oversight of SpaceX.
Musk was also tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, and his stated goals are to downsize the federal budget and operations by slashing spending, curbing regulations and cutting the workforce.
Trump's inauguration takes place on Monday. Musk is expected to be in attendance.
- CNN
