On Thursday March, 6th, at 6:30pm Eastern Standard time SpaceX’s facility in Boca, Chica Texas launched a Starship that was aiming to make a full rotation around the earth. Minutes after liftoff the spacecraft exploded which caused the F.A.A. to issue all air traffic to stop.

The Starship had final contact 9 minutes after liftoff. Debris fell onto the Caribbean islands which caused minor damage to a car in The Turks and Caicos islands.

Last month, the F.A.A. Approved SpaceX’s launch license for Thursdays test flight while the investigation of the last Starships explosion remained open. The F.A.A said that they reviewed SpaceX’s application and details of the company’s last incident before approving their license.

Reuters said that the F.A.A. “said it’s investigation would require SpaceX to examine the failure’s cause and get the agency’s sign-off before the Starship could fly again”(Roulette and Shepardson, March 7th).

Minutes after liftoff the spacecraft was shown on SpaceX’s livestream spinning into space and the rockets engines showed multiple engine shutdowns. The base in Boca Chica soon lost contact with the spacecraft. In a statement later that day, SpaceX said that the rocket experienced an “energetic event” in its aft section, which caused the loss of several engines which in turn caused a loss of altitude and a loss of communication.