SpaceX lost the upper stage Ship 33 after stage separation as it detached itself from the booster.
The private US astronautics company SpaceX confirmed that Flight 7 Starship was destroyed in a rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD) event during the launch and landing test last week (Thursday, 16th January 2025).
While the 2nd/upper stage of Flight 7 Starship (Ship 33) blasted into space, SpaceX bagged success by catching the Super Heavy booster (Booster 14) on its way back to Earth for the 2nd time.
Many people saw stardust-like lightning particles traveling in the sky. At first, no one knew what it was. Later on, it was confirmed that this was actually the debris of Flight 7 Starship burning and traveling through space.
Around 1 hour after SpaceX reported the loss of Flight 7 Starship during the live webcast, videos of strange meteor-like stardust passing through the sky started surfacing on X (Twitter). As we can see in the photo above, Ship 33 turned into thousands of burning stainless steel pieces cruising through space.
Why Flight 7 Starship Experienced a RUD
SpaceX released an official statement explaining the reason for the Flight 7 Starship upper stage RUD. According to SpaceX, a fire developed in the aft (bottom) section of Ship 33 leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD).
Initial data indicates a fire developed in the aft section of the ship (upper stage), leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly with debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas.
Starship flew within its designated launch corridor – as all U.S. launches do to safeguard the public both on the ground, on water and in the air. Any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area.
As always, success comes from what we learn, and this flight test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary. Data review is already underway as we seek out root cause. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA, and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests.
The ship and booster for Starship’s eighth flight test are built and going through prelaunch testing and preparing to fly as we continue a rapid iterative development process to build a fully and rapidly reusable space transportation system.
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