SpaceX Starship Hit by Explosion Before 10th Test Launch

Prime Highlights

SpaceX Starship Ship 36 blew up during a static-fire test at Starbase, Texas, on June 18, 2025.
This is the fourth significant failure in the Starship program this year.

Key Facts

The blast happened around 11 p.m. local time, and no injuries were reported.
Initial analysis indicates a high-pressure vessel or nitrogen tank failure.

Key Background

SpaceX’s starry-eyed Starship program suffered yet another blow when its test article for the upper stage, Ship 36, blew up during a routine static-fire test at the firm’s Massey’s Test Site in Starbase, Texas. The blast happened in the evening of June 18, 2025, when propellants were being loaded ahead of an engine test firing before the 10th test flight of the vehicle.

Witnesses claimed to have seen a humongous fireball followed by subsequent structural damage to ground support equipment. The initial cause of the explosion is believed to be caused by a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) or a nitrogen tank failure. SpaceX evacuated the area prior to the accident happening, thereby avoiding any casualties or injuries.

This is the fourth major failure of the Starship program in 2025 alone. The history goes back to two flight explosions on test flights and also one booster anomaly, which raised mounting concerns about the engineering strength of the Starship design. In spite of successive failures, SpaceX just keeps on going in its development by utilizing its iterative model of development—accepting fast testing and iteration cycles to experiment with its designs.

The explosion temporarily halted preparations for the follow-on integrated Starship flight test on June 29. With Massey’s static-fire facilities broadly affected, future testing of upper-stage spacecraft and even potentially booster stages is likely to be delayed. That is not only SpaceX commercial activity but NASA’s Artemis program as well, where Starship is a human landing vehicle for travel to the moon.

Though Elon Musk has played down the mishap, describing it as “just a scratch,” the explosion marks the hazards of pursuing such massive rocket development. SpaceX has now to deal with technical loopholes as well as increasing scrutiny from regulatory bodies as it moves closer to pursuing its long-term goal: pushing interplanetary travel and colonization of Mars through its Starship project.