Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship explodes on test stand [View all]

The failure sent a giant fireball into the sky over the company’s South Texas launch site.

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft exploded ahead of an engine test late Wednesday, sending a large fireball into the South Texas sky and dealing another major setback to Elon Musk’s company.

It was the fourth time the company has lost a Starship spacecraft this year. In three previous test flights, the vehicle came apart or detonated during its flight.

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Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, standing some 400 feet tall when fully stacked, and is central to NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon. The space agency has awarded contracts worth $4 billion to SpaceX for the development of Starship, which it intends to use to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface.

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The setback comes as Musk ended his controversial time in Washington leading the U.S. DOGE Service and after a cantankerous rift with President Donald Trump, who earlier this month threatened to cancel all of the federal contracts held by Musk’s companies.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/06/19/starship-spacex-explosion-musk/