• SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft exploded in space minutes after lifting off from Texas, in the second straight failure this year for Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program.

• The failure of the eighth Starship test comes just over a month after the seventh also ended in an explosive failure. 

• The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket system is central to Musk’s plan to send humans to Mars as soon as the turn of the decade.

• The rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s sprawling Boca Chica, Texas, rocket facilities on March 6.

• The Super Heavy first stage booster flew back to Earth as planned and was successfully grabbed in midair by a SpaceX crane. But minutes later, a visualisation of the rocket’s engines showed multiple engines shut down. 

• Fiery debris rained over south Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue ground stops at several airports, including Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando. 

• SpaceX said there were no toxic materials among the debris.

• NASA has booked Starship to land its astronauts on the Moon later this decade. 

Additional Read:

What is space debris?

Ever since the start of the space age there has been more space debris in orbit than operational satellites. The amount of objects, combined mass and combined area has been steadily rising since the beginning of the space age, leading to the appearance of involuntary collisions between operational payloads and space debris. 

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)