Elon Musk’s dream explodes as rival reaches new horizons

SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded after launch in Texas, marking a setback for Elon Musk’s $350 billion space technology company, just hours after a successful launch by rival Blue Origin.

Starship underwent what was described as an “unscheduled rapid disassembly”, with initial data indicating the development of a fire in the rear section, SpaceX said on Thursday (16).

However, the company managed to successfully “rescue” the rocket propellant during its return to Earth.
On his social network, X, Musk stated that the failure of the main rocket may have been caused by an oxygen or fuel leak in the ship’s engine protection barrier.
“Nothing so far suggests delaying the next launch beyond next month,” he said.

The flight was the seventh test launch of Starship, a 120-meter-tall rocket powered by Raptor engines, which reached space for the first time in November 2023.

Videos posted on social media showed the rocket’s spectacular disintegration in a shower of flames over the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. SpaceX reported that the debris fell “in the Atlantic Ocean within pre-defined risk areas”.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported it had briefly slowed and diverted aircraft around the area where debris was falling, after issuing a warning to pilots. Flight tracking websites noted commercial flight diversions in the region following the explosion.
SpaceX said the failure “served as a reminder that development testing, by definition, is unpredictable.”

The incident occurred shortly after the successful maiden launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, which competes with Musk in the satellite launch market. The launch of New Glenn took place five years behind the original schedule.

Earlier on Thursday, Bezos wished Musk and SpaceX good luck in an X post.
SpaceX became the world’s most valuable private startup a month ago, reaching a valuation of $350 billion in a share sale to employees. This represented a significant jump from the company’s $210 billion valuation just six months earlier.

Investors rushed to back SpaceX, in part due to Musk’s closeness to the president-elect, according to sources familiar with the business, which has led to a “Trump effect” in the valuation of several of Musk’s companies.
SpaceX is leading the race to commercialize spaceflight, advancing Musk’s ambition to develop reusable rockets and make the human race “multi-planetary.”

Founded in 2002, the company was the first to transport people to the International Space Station in 2020. Last year, SpaceX was called upon to bring back astronauts who were stranded on the station.