The incident unfolded at exactly 11:02 p.m. CT on Wednesday at the company's Starbase facility in Texas. Engineers were conducting a “static fire” test—where engines are ignited while the rocket remains anchored to the pad—when disaster struck. The upper stage, powered by six Raptor engines, had not even lifted off when it suddenly erupted, engulfing the stand in flames and debris.
The event was captured on a live YouTube broadcast by NASA Spaceflight, where commentators Sawyer Rosenstein and Max Evans exclaimed, "Whoa!" as the screen flashed white and was followed by secondary explosions, hurling shrapnel into the sky.
BREAKING: SpaceX Starship explodes during static fire test pic.twitter.com/ChTSKp3KIO
— BNO News (@BNONews) June 19, 2025
SpaceX confirmed the anomaly on X (formerly Twitter), calling it a “major anomaly” but reported no injuries. The explosion occurred at a remote testing site several miles away from SpaceX's orbital launch tower, located along the Rio Grande near the U.S.-Mexico border.
A statement from the company noted that “a safety perimeter was maintained, and all personnel are accounted for and safe.” SpaceX teams are now working with local authorities to secure the area and assess damage.
Elon Musk: ‘Just a Scratch’
CEO Elon Musk downplayed the failure in a cryptic post on X: “Just a scratch,” he wrote. But in a more detailed follow-up to space blogger Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut), Musk revealed preliminary data suggesting a Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV) in the payload bay failed under pressure. If confirmed, it would mark the first such failure of this specific design.
COPV Failures—Not Unprecedented
A COPV is a lightweight high-pressure tank constructed with composite materials wrapped around a metal liner. While this failure is novel in the Starship upper stage, SpaceX has dealt with similar incidents in the past. In 2016, a Falcon 9 rocket detonated during a routine pre-launch test in Cape Canaveral, destroying a Facebook satellite. That explosion was also traced back to a COPV immersed in liquid oxygen, which buckled under pressure.
Following that incident, SpaceX redesigned the COPV system and went on to make the Falcon 9 one of the most reliable rockets in aerospace history. In fact, just hours before the Starship explosion, SpaceX launched its 75th Falcon 9 mission of 2025, lofting another batch of Starlink satellites—bringing its orbital broadband constellation above 9,000 satellites.
Meanwhile, Facebook’s dream of global internet coverage quietly died; Meta shuttered its Connectivity division in late 2022.
Is Starship’s Future in Jeopardy?
While the Falcon 9 and Starship share a corporate lineage, the engineering designs are worlds apart. Starship—standing 404 feet tall—is envisioned as a fully reusable, two-stage interplanetary rocket capable of refueling in orbit and ferrying astronauts and cargo to the Moon and Mars. But the reality of execution has been grim.
Despite nine full-scale launches since April 2023, Starship’s second stage has yet to successfully reach orbit. The maiden flight ended in a mid-air explosion just 24 miles high. The fifth and sixth flights in late 2023 showed promise, successfully placing the upper stage on suborbital trajectories before splashing down.
However, 2024 has been brutal. The redesigned upper stage has performed more like a cursed prototype than a next-gen spacecraft. Test flights seven and eight ended in mid-ascent explosions. The ninth flight suffered engine failure, lost control, and disintegrated on re-entry.
This latest explosion threatens SpaceX’s plans to use Starship for launching the much larger and more powerful “V3” Starlink satellites in bulk. It also casts uncertainty over NASA’s Artemis lunar program, which hinges on a specialized version of Starship serving as the lunar lander. NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.89 billion contract in 2021 for that purpose.
To proceed, SpaceX must first prove its orbital refueling system and flight safety architecture—both of which depend on a successful cadence of Starship launches. That campaign now faces further delays.
A Bleak Outlook for NASA’s Backup Plan
NASA's “Plan B” isn't offering much reassurance either. In 2023, Blue Origin received a $3.4 billion contract to develop a second lunar lander using its yet-unflown New Glenn rocket. But that launch vehicle has only flown once—and is far from proven.
With leadership transitions looming at NASA following a surprise political withdrawal of Elon Musk's preferred appointee by former President Trump, the future looks murky. Billionaire private astronaut Jared Isaacman—slated to fly on upcoming Starship missions—may now find his dream of commercial space exploration entering uncharted and turbulent territory.
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