The FAA says it has grounded the Starship vehicle pending a mishap investigation, and it’s working with SpaceX to assess reports of property damage in Turks and Caicos.

A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launching from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to alter course to avoid falling debris and setting back Elon Musk's flagship rocket program.

While the Starship is lost, the mission's first-stage booster successfully returned to the launch tower, where it was caught by the tower's robotic arms.

A fire in the aft section of SpaceX's Starship trigged the apparent explosion that destroyed the spacecraft, the company says.

The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s Starship ended with a successful landing of the rocket’s first stage but also the loss of the Starship vehicle

Dramatic footage showing streaks of light zipping across the sky surfaced online following Elon Musk's Starship explosion over the Atlantic Ocean.

In a statement following the accident, the FAA said that it was working with SpaceX and other authorities to confirm the property damage caused by the debris that fell in the Turks and Islands

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told TechCrunch it had to "briefly" slow and divert a number of aircraft in the airspace near Puerto Rico, where

No injuries have been reported from falling debris after SpaceX's Starship exploded in the sky over the Bahamas. However, the FAA has halted further test flights while it investigates.

The uncrewed Starship spacecraft was apparently destroyed during its first flight launch of 2025 that blasted off from south Texas.

The upper stage of SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded minutes after launch from Texas on Thursday, leading the aerospace company to declare the vessel a "loss" in the seventh test flight of the heavy-lift spacecraft.