Multiple airports in Florida were temporarily placed under a ground stop after a massive SpaceX Starship rocket exploded in flight on Thursday night, according to the National Airspace System.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) via email on Thursday night.
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Flights were halted or delayed in many of the Sunshine State’s major airports flights due to space “debris” caused by the SpaceX failure. Florida’s Miami International Airport (MIA), Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL), and Orlando International Airport (MCO) all were impacted, although the ground stops were lifted by around 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
“During Starship’s ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost,” SpaceX said in a post to X, formerly Twitter. “Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.”
“We will review the data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause,” the post continued. “As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability.”
In a statement, the FAA said that it would be “requiring SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation” due to the explosion.
This is a developing story that will be updated with additional information.