SpaceX's starship 'explosion' prompts Florida's biggest airports to halt flights

SpaceX on Thursday launched its eighth suborbital flight test from Starbase located in Texas' Boca Chica Beach which resulted in a failure. Accumulation of space launch debris from SpaceX' failed test flight prompted authorities to announce closure of flight operations on Thursday night. Debris was scattered over parts of the Caribbean that prompted numerous flight diversions around Turks and Caicos and ground stops at four Florida airports.

In the wake of this incidence, a ground stop was issued for multiple Florida airports, including Miami International, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, Orlando and Palm Beach airports until 8:00 PM ET, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Departures at these specific airports were delayed by an average of 45 minutes due to the SpaceX incident, the FAA said.

All about Starship mega rocket

The fully integrated Starship mega rocket that was launched was a combination of the ship's upper stage (S34) and the Super Heavy booster (B15). However, this time as well Starship's upper stage lost contact and broke apart following a failed mission in January. After uncontrollable spins in space, the upper stage of Starship was blown up and the debris came cascading back to earth early Thursday evening.

Starship was slated to deploy four Starlink simulators during the flight test which was similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. Furthermore, Starlink simulators were expected to disappear upon entry in space. As per the plan, a relight of a single Raptor engine in space was scheduled.

Confirming the unfortunate happenings, SpaceX in a statement said, “During Starship's ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.”

"We will review the data from today's flight test to better understand [the] root cause. As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship's reliability," it added.