SpaceX’s Starship Explodes During Splashdown; Musk Blames Fuel Leak for Third Consecutive Test Failure

New Delhi: SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded during splashdown on its ninth test flight on Wednesday, with founder Elon Musk attributing the failure to a fuel leak.

This marks the third consecutive failed test flight for Starship. The two previous missions — the seventh in January and the eighth in March — also ended in destruction before completion.

The latest test flight, which lifted off at approximately 7:36 p.m. EDT (5:06 a.m. IST) from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, achieved several milestones. Starship successfully reached orbit and traveled farther than in its previous attempts.

However, the mission ran into trouble when the spacecraft’s payload bay door failed to open, preventing the release of simulated Starlink satellites. Roughly 30 minutes into the flight, SpaceX reported a fuel tank leak aboard the vehicle.

The first-stage Super Heavy booster exploded just before its scheduled splashdown. Meanwhile, the upper-stage vehicle began spinning uncontrollably during re-entry, a result of the fuel leak, and eventually lost stability.

“Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase,” Musk explained in a post on his social media platform X.

SpaceX confirmed that contact with the booster was lost shortly after the landing burn began. “It experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly approximately six minutes after launch, marking the end of the first reflight of a Super Heavy booster,” the company said in a statement.

Despite the failure, Musk described the flight as a step forward. “Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff — a big improvement over the last flight. Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent. Lots of valuable data to analyze,” he noted.

SpaceX added that it will continue reviewing the data in preparation for the next test flight.

Standing 403 feet (123 meters) tall, the Starship and Super Heavy booster together form the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built. The system is slated to launch NASA’s Artemis III lunar mission, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon by 2026.

With inputs from IANS