About three weeks ago, on January 16, just after 5:30 p.m., an unmanned SpaceX rocket known as Starship took off from South Texas. It reached the upper atmosphere until about eight minutes later when residents of the Bahamas reported seeing debris streaking through the sky. Starship, which was planned to re-enter the Indian Ocean, had lost communication with the company, and SpaceX later confirmed that their vessel had undergone “rapid unscheduled disassembly” (that it had exploded).
Starship is one of SpaceX’s most publicized and well-known projects. The spacecraft is designed to be a fully reusable rocket with the goal of being used to take manned missions from Earth to the Moon and even beyond and support up to 100 people. It has two main parts: the Super Heavy booster that helps the craft gain altitude and the Starship spacecraft that goes with it.
Residents were given a number to call if they found debris on their property and instructed not to touch it. While several social media reports were said to show debris on the island, these were not able to be confirmed, with some experts suggesting that much of it fell into the ocean. Some researchers have also suggested that damage could be caused by the ‘sonic boom’ that occurs when debris traveling faster than the speed of sound re-enters the atmosphere.
“This event was over one of the most populated areas in the Caribbean, with one of the largest things we’ve ever seen re-enter the atmosphere,” says Benjamin Fernando, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins who studies seismology. “So if (sonic boom property damage) is going to happen, it’ll be an event like this that does cause it.”
There were also concerns about the atmospheric pollution that the event could cause. Researchers have predicted that as much as 45.5 metric tons of metal oxides and 40 metric tons of nitrogen oxides could have entered the atmosphere. These types of metals are well known for causing damage to the ozone layer, which protects humans from harmful UV rays. There was also a large impact on air travel, with the website FlightRadar24 reporting that dozens of flights were rerouted out of the way of debris.
SpaceX has had its fair share of recent explosions. Out of the seven total Starlink tests, four of them have been successful, with another explosion that occurred over the Indian Ocean last March.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is allowing SpaceX to conduct the investigation into why the craft failed, and afterward, the Administration plans to report a detailed list of changes that SpaceX needs to make in order to clear Starship for another flight. SpaceX’s CEO, Elon Musk, has been extremely critical of the FAA in the past, even calling for the former director’s resignation as recently as September. It is unclear what Musk’s role in the current administration, as well as the recent plane crashes in the United States, mean for the Administration in the future.
As of right now, it is not clear whether this event will spell problems for the Starship project. Currently, the Starship rocket is grounded until the investigation concludes and potential damage is assessed.
