SpaceX has lost contact once again after its latest test flights of the spacecraft from Texas and ground stops at several Florida airports.
The rocket was attempting an eighth infraorbital launch, but SpaceX was able to run a third booster catch on the tower. The test flight was only less than two months after the final attempt exploded over the Atlantic.
Videos of the crumbling spaceship have been shot again from the Bahamas, Turks & Caicos, the Caribbean and Florida.
The SpaceX Starship falls apart during a test flight and will scatter wreckage in the Bahamas on March 6, 2025. pic.twitter.com/r20tsahloa
– UFO Community (@ufocommunity) March 7, 2025
The Federal Aviation Administration has placed ground stops at airports in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach through Orlando International Airport at 8pm.
Another stunning view of the Turks and the shards of the spaceship above Caicos
SpaceX checks for quick unplanned decomposition when Ascent ‘pic.twitter.com/mpofevsb6u
– March 7, 2025 (@moment_mirthful) Mirthful moment
The rocket was lifted from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in Bocachica, Texas, after 6:30pm on EST. Flight Profile once again called for a Super Heavy Booster to return to the launch tower, which was caught in the pivot arm of the tower called the chopsticks.
The Caszilla caught a super heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/jfejsdnq5x
– SpaceX (@Spacex) March 6, 2025
The Upper Stage spacecraft was then to continue mid-earth to attempt water to land in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia.
However, the team lost contact again in the Atlantic.
“Unfortunately, it seems like we’ve lost control of the ship’s attitude,” said SpaceX commentator Kate Tice.
Fellow commentator Dan Huott said telemetry showed the engine was only 20 seconds left with rising burns at the top.
“The ship started to spin and at this point we lost contact with the ship,” he said.
The failure followed a similar pattern seen during its release on January 16th, which also successfully caught a super-heavy booster, but the starry spacecraft exploded after passing through the Gulf of Mexico with a scene of streaking debris posted on social media from places like Turks & Caicos.
🚨New feature: An incredible view of Spaceship 7 that broke the Turks and Caicos tonight
Imagine watching this on your house🤣pic.twitter.com/ndydetk4wc
– Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 16, 2025
The event took root on a rocket in development, but the Federal Aviation Administration cleared it as of February 26th to be released again.
“After completing a necessary and comprehensive safety review, the FAA has determined that SpaceX Starship vehicles can return to flight operations and the January 16th Starship Flight 7 Mishap investigation remains open,” the FAA said. “The FAA oversees SpaceX-led investigations.”
This flight was an effort to continue the advancement of Elon Musk’s Heavy-Lift Rocket program.
“Several hardware and operational changes have been made to improve the reliability of the upper stage,” SpaceX posted on its website.
To support the increased pace of launches over the next few years, SpaceX has continued its second launch site in Texas, unveiling $1.8 billion in infrastructure to support the launch site for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. We hope to be released by the KSC site for Fire Complex 39-A by the end of the year.
However, with this test launch, the goal that was not reached in the final attempt was tap again. This included a test run of payload deployments and a re-entry experiment that the company hoped would return to the Texas launch site and land, leading to future launches.
Four test payloads simulated the size of SpaceX’s StarLink satellites, allowing them to burn re-inputs by following the same trajectory of the spacecraft stage at the top.
“Development testing by definition is unpredictable,” SpaceX posted. “However, by placing flight hardware in the flight environment as often as possible, we can quickly learn and implement design changes with the aim of bringing spacecraft online as fully and quickly reusable vehicles.”
Original issue: March 6, 2025, 5:16pm EST
