Danger: the Starship has self-destructed above a busy air corridor!
Uncontrolled atmospheric reentry of SpaceX Starship debris. © screenshot.
This Thursday, January 16, 2025 was busy in the aerospace field, not to say “super-heavy”. In the morning, the New-Glenn (NG-1) “maousse” rocket finally took off after several postponements. This maiden flight was a success, even if the first stage could not be recovered. The primary orbit mission having had a favorable outcome, it is a success for the firm of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
In the evening (French time), it was the 7th firing of Elon Musk's Starship which obviously monopolized the attention, for good and much less good. The good first: the SuperHeavy B14 Booster first stage was caught in flight by its giant launch tower, affectionately nicknamed Mechazilla, repeating the feat that SpaceX achieved in October. His two arms still worked miracles.
Catching up with the first floor of the Starship by the Mechazilla tower and its two “wands”. © Screenshot from Techniques Spatiales live.
Things then got really bad with the upper stage, the Starship S33. He triggered his FTS (for Flight Terminator System) in order to carry out his own self-destruction. Certainly, the images are impressive, and from a certain point of view, almost “beautiful”. Moreover, Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX and Tesla, advertised the event on his X network (formerly Twitter) with a “uncertain success, guaranteed spectacle”.
Tweet from Elon Musk following the Starship disintegration. © X (Twitter)
So, yes, the images are spectacular, but it is possible that this self-destruction in full acceleration phase in space will have consequences on the Starship space program. In fact, the debris from the rocket passed not far from a busy air corridor. Some sources (which we have not been able to verify at the time of writing) even mention planes having had to modify their trajectory. There is every reason to believe that the all-powerful FAA, responsible for authorizing flights, will qualify the event as an “incident” and that the Starships will be grounded for a few weeks, or even a few months, for the duration of the flight. 'investigation.
We have just experienced one of the worst moments of the Starship program. Obviously planes had to change their trajectory to avoid danger.
We are surely heading into a major FAA investigation with a ground hold lasting several weeks. https://t.co/zbS3KmPSBe— Ufotinik (@ufotinik) January 16, 2025
How will the FAA react? Elon Musk now having great power within the Trump administration, still president-elect until January 20, the federal agency will have to weigh its decisions concerning SpaceX. It will nevertheless have to ensure its mission, which is to prevent airspace from being a wild west.
Here is a summary of the Starship's 7th flight from the Hugo Lisoir YouTube channel, with the catch-up and the explosion leading to an uncontrolled atmospheric reentry:
