The explosion of the unmanned Starship caused debris to scatter in the area, leading to a temporary grounding of flights from several airports in Florida
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has faced another major setback in its pursuit of interplanetary travel. On Thursday, March 6, 2025, the company’s Starship spacecraft, designed for human missions to Mars, exploded during a test flight just minutes after taking off from the SpaceX Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. This latest failure marks another significant challenge for SpaceX’s ambitious goals of developing a fully reusable transportation system aimed at taking humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
SpaceX confirmed the incident in a statement, explaining that during the Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” resulting in contact loss. The company stated that its team immediately coordinated with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses, ensuring that safety protocols were followed. SpaceX also reassured the public that it would be reviewing data from the failed flight to understand the root cause of the malfunction, emphasizing that learning from failures is a key part of improving the spacecraft’s reliability.
The explosion of the unmanned Starship caused debris to scatter in the area, leading to a temporary grounding of flights from several airports in Florida. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ground notice for multiple flights from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando airports. The disruption led to significant delays for passengers, although flights eventually resumed. The FAA has since opened an investigation into the incident, which will need to be completed before SpaceX can proceed with another launch of Starship.
This test flight failure comes just over a month after the previous Starship launch, which also ended in an explosion shortly after takeoff on January 16, 2025. In response to the recent setback, Musk posted on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter, explaining that preliminary indications pointed to an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship’s engine firewall. The leak, he said, created enough pressure to exceed the vent capacity, ultimately causing the explosion.
While SpaceX deals with the aftermath of this failed test flight, Musk’s other venture, the social media platform X, is also facing challenges. On March 10, 2025, X experienced a massive global outage that left millions of users, including those in India, unable to access the platform. Users reported being unable to post tweets, open pages, or interact with content during the outage, which lasted for over 30 minutes. The platform outage peaked around 3:00 PM, according to outage tracking platform DownDetector, and users flocked to other social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to report the issue.
Musk, who acquired X (formerly Twitter) in 2022 for $44 billion, confirmed the outage and attributed it to a massive cyberattack. In a post on X, he stated that the platform was under attack by a coordinated group or possibly a country with significant resources. Musk suggested that the attack was aimed at silencing him and the platform, which has become a prominent space for free speech and debate. He reassured users that the situation was being addressed and that efforts were underway to trace those responsible.
During the downtime, X users voiced their frustrations, with many commenting on the platform’s failure and speculating on who might be behind the attack. One user posted, “Is Twitter down? Anyone getting the same issue? Can’t open the comments section,” while another wrote, “Looks like someone really doesn’t want X to thrive. Wonder who’s behind it.”
The recent outage comes at a time when X has faced other challenges. Musk recently raised the prices for its Premium+ subscription service by 35% for both new and existing users globally, including in India. The price hike, which saw Premium users in India paying Rs 1,750 per month (up from Rs 1,300), has sparked backlash from subscribers, especially considering the recent technical difficulties experienced by the platform.
In addition to the challenges faced by SpaceX and X, Musk has been grappling with broader industry and public scrutiny regarding the performance and stability of his ventures. Despite these setbacks, both SpaceX and X continue to be major players in their respective fields, with Musk’s ambitions for space exploration and social media reshaping the way the world engages with technology.
SpaceX’s Starship remains a critical component of Musk’s vision for humanity’s future beyond Earth, and the company’s continued efforts to refine and perfect its technology will likely include more test flights. The recent explosion serves as a reminder of the difficulties inherent in space exploration, but it also provides valuable data that could eventually lead to a successful launch.
Meanwhile, X’s global outage and cyberattack serve as a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities faced by even the most prominent digital platforms. As Musk and his team work to recover from both the technical glitch and the ongoing investigation into the cyberattack, it remains to be seen how these setbacks will impact the future of X and SpaceX, as both continue to innovate and reshape their respective industries.
While these incidents may have dealt significant blows to Musk’s ventures, they also underscore the resilience required to overcome the challenges inherent in pushing the boundaries of technology and innovation. As SpaceX and X move forward, both companies will need to learn from these failures, adapt, and continue to drive progress in their respective fields.
