STARBASE, Texas (KVEO) —A SpaceX rocket being tested in Texas exploded Wednesday night, sending a dramatic fireball high into the sky.
The company said the Starship “experienced a major anomaly” at about 11 p.m. while on the test stand preparing for the 10th flight test at Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site at the southern tip of Texas.
“A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for,” SpaceX said in a statement on the social platform X.
“Our Starbase team is actively working to safe the test site and the immediate surrounding area in conjunction with local officials,” the statement read.
The space company stated that there were no hazards to residents in surrounding communities.
“We ask that individuals do not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue,” the statement continued.
The company said it was working with local officials to respond to the explosion.
LabPadre provided a live look at the site.
Hector Martinez, a spokesperson for the Brownsville Fire department said his crews responded just after 11 p.m. Martinez said SpaceX staged them a mile away from its storage tanks.
SpaceX handled all the extinguishing and called on Brownsville Fire for support with the storage tanks, which store propellant and could have caused a second explosion. Brownsville crews were there as backup but were cleared from the scene after two hours.
The blast marked the latest in a series of incidents involving Starship rockets. On Jan. 16, one of the massive rockets broke apart in what the company called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” sending trails of flaming debris near the Caribbean. Two months later, Space X lost contact with another Starship during a March 6 test flight as the spacecraft broke apart, with wreckage seen streaming over Florida.
Following the back-to-back explosions, one of the 403-foot (123-meter) Starship rockets, launched from the southern tip of Texas, tumbled out of control and broke apart on March 27. SpaceX had hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed because the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning and made an uncontrolled landing in the Indian Ocean.
At the time, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called the launch “a big improvement” from the two previous demos and promised a much faster launch pace moving forward, with a Starship soaring every three to four weeks for the next three flights.
Elon Musk commented on the explosion the morning after the incident through a reply to a user on X. The SpaceX CEO stated, “Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure. If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
