SpaceX's Starship has exploded into countless pieces of space junk as it reentered the atmosphere over the Caribbean.

The company's seventh test flight has ended in what could turn out to be a disaster, with videos taken from the West Indian islands of Turks and Caicos showing massive streaks of reentering pieces of Starship rocket blazing across the evening sky.

SpaceX called the event a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," a tongue-in-cheek term denoting a rocket explosion, "during its ascent burn," in a statement posted to X-formerly-Twitter.

"Teams will continue to review data from today's flight test to better understand root cause," the company wrote. "With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability."

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has yet to comment on the mishap.

It's still unclear if anybody was hurt following the event. Given the proximity of the debris to the Caribbean islands, it's not out of the question.

"Starship debris raining from space after its explosion 8.5 mins into flight," Reuters space reporter Joey Roulette tweeted.

"Scary or beautiful?" Ars Technica reporter Stephen Clark wrote. "Hopefully, no harm or damage. Yikes."

The company's seventh test flight initially appeared to have gone smoothly, with Starship's Super Heavy booster being caught by SpaceX's "chopsticks" arms-equipped tower.

But despite having sent several Starship prototypes successfully into orbit and having them slow their descent before dropping into the Pacific, the company's latest attempt appears to have been a major step backward.

"This is probably the most significant setback for Starship since SpaceX started full-stack test flights in 2023," Clark tweeted. "The [Federal Aviation Administration] will likely require a mishap investigation."

Other onlookers saw the situation as a glass half full.

"Lots to learn for SpaceX from these Starship disintegration videos, unfortunately," former Canadian astronaut legend Chris Hadfield tweeted. "Hopefully no one hurt. Glad the first stage was successfully caught. Onwards to improvements for Flight 8."

Other observers were just puzzled.

More on Starship: SpaceX Spotted Scooping Pieces of Starship Out of Ocean After Impact


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