SpaceX Starship Explodes Minutes After Launch

Less than ten minutes after it took off, the spacecraft lost contact with control teams and exploded in the sky. A series of failures for the company has hampered progress.

For the second time this year, a SpaceX Starship test flight exploded shortly after takeoff on Thursday.

Ground control lost contact with the spacecraft just minutes after it launched. As it broke up into fiery debris, the FAA was forced to halt air traffic at several airports in Florida.

The explosion disrupted about 240 flights, including requiring more two dozen airplanes to divert over space debris concerns. Four Florida airports, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Palm Beach, were impacted as aircraft were required to be grounded for just over an hour. 

171 departures were delayed, 28 flights were diverted, and 40 airborne flights were held an average of 22 minutes while the agency's Debris Response Area was active.

Why did the SpaceX Starship explode?
SpaceX confirmed that the Starship experienced "a rapid unscheduled disassembly" during the ascent engine firing.

Thursday's mishap comes almost two months after a similar incident, marking the second failure for the company owned by billionaire and unofficial presidential aide Elon Musk.

The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket took off from the SpaceX Boca Chica facility in Texas at around 6:30 p.m. local time (2330 GMT).

The first stage of the flight was successful, with the booster separating and flying back to Earth, to be caught in midair by a crane.

But then the upper part of the Starship began to spin as multiple engines shut down.

"Unfortunately this happened last time too, so we've got some practice now," SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said on the SpaceX live stream of the event.

Will Musk manage to get to Mars?
Both tests this year failed at stages previously passed by prior tests, marking a setback for Musk's plan to speed up the program in 2025.

The launch in January resulted in an explosion after around eight minutes that saw debris rain down on several Caribbean islands, causing minor damage to a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Musk hopes to send humans to Mars by the end of the decade and the Starship program is a key part of that plan.

The Federal Aviation Administration said SpaceX would have to investigate what happened in order to get a sign off for any future flights.