Associated Press, KHOU 11 Staff Published: — SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 19, 2025 The company said it is working with local officials to respond to the explosion. This Starship rocket is the biggest and most powerful rocket at SpaceX. The goal is for it to take humans back to the Moon and eventually to Mars, but the test rockets have exploded several times in the past year. Just last month, once the Starship was in orbit, a side hatch jammed and it failed to deploy test satellites. Then there was a leak in the fuel tank, causing the rocket to spin out of control when it re-entered the atmosphere and break apart over the Indian Ocean. In March, the rocket spun out of control and exploded about nine minutes after it launched. People saw the debris fall from the sky, which likely ended up at the bottom of the ocean. And in January of this year, the spacecraft separated from the booster and the booster got back to the launchpad, so that part was a success, but the Starship rocket going into space exploded. That was over Turks and Caicos and forced planes to divert. “SpaceX has had a real string of these failures and its raising questions about whether or not they will be ready to supply the lander, the moon lander that NASA has ordered to put astronauts on the moon in just about two to three years,” said CBS News Space Consultant Bill Harwood. Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Close Ad