Liftoff for Starship’s 8th test flight on March 6. After a successful stage separation and booster landing, Starship broke apart in flight. Photo: SpaceX

SpaceX suffered another unsuccessful Starship test on Thursday as the upper stage broke apart in flight, with debris from the event impacting air traffic. 

This marks two dramatic test failures this year. Both the March 6 test and a January test sent debris through the atmosphere, captured on social media videos in Florida and the Caribbean. 

The Jan. 17 test triggered a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mishap investigation and grounded the rocket, yet the FAA issued a license modification in late February, allowing SpaceX to fly Starship again while the mishap investigation remained open. 

Thursday’s launch broadcast hosts Dan Huot and Kate Tice explained that the investigation into the Flight 7 failure found there were vibrations at a specific frequency in the rocket that placed extra stress on the propulsion system and caused propellant leaks that led to the fires. 

Leading up to Flight 8, SpaceX conducted a 60-second static fire of the booster used in Thursday’s mission and made hardware changes to the fuel feed lines that lead to the vacuum engines, along with a series of other changes to prevent the issue. 

Starship lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas, on Thursday afternoon and everything went well at first. The rocket ascended and successfully went through its hot-stage separation of the first stage booster and Starship. Then, the booster returned to the catch tower, performing a successful “chopstick” catch landing with the launch tower arms. 

Starship continued its trajectory, but about 8 minutes into the mission and 20 seconds before the end of the ascent burn, four out of the six Raptor engines went out. Starship lost attitude control and the ship went spinning, as seen on the launch broadcast. SpaceX lost contact with the ship. 

“We did lose contact with the ship. Unfortunately this happened last time, so we’ve got some practice at this,” Huot said during the broadcast. 

In a post-launch update, SpaceX described it as an “energetic event in the aft portion of Starship,” which led to the loss of several Raptor engines. 

The FAA said in a statement that Flight 8 triggered another mishap investigation. The FAA also said it activated a “debris response area,” which happens when a space vehicle anomaly causes debris to fall outside of the identified closed aircraft hazard areas. 

“During the event, the FAA activated a debris response area and briefly slowed aircraft outside the area where space vehicle debris was falling or stopped aircraft at their departure location. Normal operations have resumed,” the FAA said. 

Two unsuccessful tests in a row are a setback for the Starship program, which has contracts to deliver humans to the Moon for NASA. The rocket’s development had a series of successful tests in 2024, hitting new milestones like reaching a suborbital trajectory for the first time, and the eye-catching milestone of catching the Super Heavy booster.