Musk's most powerful SpaceX rocket exploded during testing for the fourth time this year

Billionaire Ilon Musk's SpaceX Starship exploded during routine testing ahead of its tenth flight test. It was the fourth failure this year for the SpaceX program, which plays a key role in NASA's government projects to land Americans on the moon and in Musk's more ambitious plans to explore Mars.

A Starship rocket exploded at the Starbase facility in Texas during routine testing ahead of its tenth flight test, according to local officials and a video broadcast. Presumably, it was undergoing a routine engine test: in such cases, the engines are fired, but the rocket itself remains fixed on the pad, notes Bloomberg. It's a kind of pre-launch rehearsal, allowing engineers to test all key systems without launching the vehicle into space.

In an official statement, SpaceXreported that Starship encountered a «serious anomaly on the test stand at the Starbase facility.» The company also emphasized that no one was injured and there was no threat to local residents. Starship 10 did not have a set launch date, and it is now unknown when the next flight will take place, notes Bloomberg. After the failed launch of the previous, ninth rocket, SpaceX promised to analyze the data and make improvements to the system before a new launch attempt.

Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket system in the world. Another explosion continued a string of failures for the SpaceX program, which plays a key role in NASA's plans to land Americans on the moon in 2027-2028. Ilon Musk's company has government contracts with NASA worth about $4 billion to use Starship to deliver astronauts to the moon, Bloomberg specifies. Such a flight will not take place before 2027, but for 2026 - planned orbit of the Moon with four astronauts on board. 

This is the fourth time Starship tests have failed in 2025: three flight launches in January, March and June ended in explosions. Last month, a Starship rocket disintegrated right in mid-air, spinning out of control. In January and March, they exploded just minutes after liftoff. The debris then fell into the Gulf of Mexico and disrupted air traffic. According to SpaceX, the January crash was due to a fuel leak, while the failure in March was caused by an equipment failure in one of the Raptor engines.

Starship is the centerpiece of Musk's - and US President Donald Trump's - larger ambitions to colonize Mars. Musk has previously said he expects to send the first rocket carrying Tesla robots to the Red Planet as early as 2026. In March, he also promised that «if this is successful, human landings could begin as early as 2029, though most likely in 2031.» 

A series of failures caught up with SpaceX after the company achieved notable results last year: for the first time, the Starship booster was caught for a successful landing with the help of huge mechanical «wands» - that's what SpaceX calls special movable grippers that pick up the rocket in the air and gently fix it during landing.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of falling demand for Tesla electric cars due to Musk's work in the White House and his recent public conflict with Trump. Now that the world's richest man is gradually retreating from active political activity in Washington and focusing on his business again, the question remains: how much he will be personally involved in the fate of Starship and what decisions will be required to bring the project out of a protracted series of failures, Bloomberg notes.

SpaceX's stock is not publicly traded. Its most recent valuation of $350 billion at the end of 2024 established its status as the world's most valuable private company. At the height of Musk's conflict with Trump, Fortune magazine noted that it could cut the valuation in half - the US president then threatened to withdraw contracts and subsidies to Musk's companies. ARK Investment Fund founder Katie Wood, on the other hand, believes that SpaceX's value will soar to $2.5 trillion by 2030. In 2023, Bloomberg sources reported that SpaceX was considering an IPO for Starlink, but Musk later stated that the company was not yet planning to go public.