On-Pad Explosion Deals Another Setback to Starship

SpaceX’s Starship exploded on the launch pad at Starbase, TX just after midnight EDT during a static fire test in preparation for an upcoming launch. Starship, the second stage of the massive Super Heavy/Starship space transportation system, is designed to take payloads and people to Earth orbit and beyond, but failed during its last three test flights. Today’s explosion is another setback. SpaceX is under contract to NASA to have Starship ready to put astronauts on the lunar surface two years from now.

Video posted on X by LabPadre Space (@LabPadre) and NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) showed the explosion of Ship 36  less than two minutes after midnight this morning (00:01:55 am June 19 EDT; 11:01:55 pm June 18 CDT).

Full length video of Ship 36’s testing anomaly: pic.twitter.com/cbtIasAuf7

— LabPadre Space (@LabPadre) June 19, 2025

Realtime look at Ship36’s RUD at Massey’s.
????: https://t.co/7L4b6PFafY
????: @NASASpaceflight pic.twitter.com/B2ie0XeLoI

— D Wise (@dwisecinema) June 19, 2025

SpaceX reported all personnel were safe and accounted for and while there are “no hazards to residents in surrounding communities,” everyone should stay away from the area.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk posted in reply to Everyday Astronaut (@erdayastronaut) that based on preliminary data, a nitrogen Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel (COPV) in the payload bay failed.

Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure.

If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 19, 2025

Ship 36 was being prepared for the 10th Integrated Flight Test or IFT-10.  Static fire tests are routinely conducted before launch where the vehicle is fully fueled and the engines fired while it is held down to the launch pad with clamps.  SpaceX had not announced a date for IFT-10, but it was expected soon.

Super Heavy (“booster”) is the first stage that launches the second stage, Starship (“ship”), onto a suborbital trajectory during these tests and will someday send it into orbit and further into space.  Together the fully reusable vehicle stands 123 meters (403 feet) high with a 9-meter (29.5 foot) diameter.

All three of the last flight tests, IFT-7, IFT-8, and IFT-9, ended in Rapid Unscheduled Disassemblies or RUDs as SpaceX calls them.

IFT-7 in January and IFT-8 in March exploded over the Caribbean.  SpaceX concluded IFT-7’s failure was due to propellant leaks caused by an unexpectedly strong harmonic response and IFT-8’s was due to a hardware failure in one of Starship’s six Raptor engines “that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition.”

IFT-9 made it further, but the end result was another RUD. Starship was intended to fly three-quarters of the way around the globe and splashdown in the Indian Ocean near Australia after conducting a number of tests, especially of the heat shield, along the way. Instead, fuel leaks developed and the vehicle began spinning. SpaceX decided to passivate the vehicle by venting the rest of the fuel overboard before they lost communications. They lost contact as the vehicle began to disintegrate at about 59 kilometers (36.6 miles) altitude.

Starship is SpaceX’s future, not just for launching satellites to Earth orbit, but for sending astronauts to the Moon and Mars. SpaceX is under contract to NASA to provide a Human Landing System (HLS) version of Starship for the first two missions that will return U.S. astronauts to the Moon. The first, Artemis III, is just two years from now, adding urgency to the need to get Starship flying successfully.

Musk’s own passion is sending millions of people to Mars to create a multiplanetary species to ensure humanity can survive if anything happens to Earth. That also requires Starship.

SpaceX’s philosophy is “fail fast, learn faster” and usually is undeterred by failures like this one.