There was drama in the skies above the Cayman Islands last night when SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft exploded, giving those watching a clear view of fiery debris raining down to earth.
The 403-foot-long craft disintegrated right after take-off on Thursday evening just after 6:30pm when its engines cut out and it started to spin uncontrollably.
While Starship’s flight path actually took it north of Cuba, due to clear skies, the event could clearly be seen from the Cayman Islands with social media posts showing the path of the craft as it streaked across the evening sky, initially as a single white light and then a scattering of light as it broke apart.
Mission to Mars
Starship’s mission had been to launch mock satellites as part of Elon Musk’s plans to eventually send astronauts to Mars. It was the second consecutive failure this year for the programme, following the explosion of the seventh Starship flight in January due to a fire igniting near the ship’s liquid oxygen tank.
“Unfortunately, this happened last time, too, so we’ve got some practice now,” Dan Huot, a SpaceX spokesperson, said on the SpaceX livestream.
There were no astronauts on board. Flights were briefly halted at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports because of “space launch debris” and flights were also diverted around Turks and Caicos.
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