SpaceX has revealed that its latest Starship prototype self-destructed during its flight last month following an oxygen leak, flashes, and "sustained fires" in its aft section.In an update posted to its website today, the Elon Musk-led space company admitted that "not every test objective was completed," but vowed that "lessons learned will roll directly into future vehicles to make them more capable as Starship advances toward full and rapid reuse."On January 16, SpaceX's towering Starship prototype broke into countless pieces as it reentered the atmosphere over the Caribbean, showering the British islands of Turks and Caicos with debris.The "rapid unscheduled disassembly," a tongue-in-cheek term denoting a rocket explosion, occurred after stage separation, when the team noticed a "flash" near Starship's six Raptor engines, with sensors detecting a "pressure rise indicative of a leak."The fires "eventually caused all but one of Starships engines to execute controlled shut down sequences." SpaceX suggests that the rocket's Autonomous Flight Safety System triggered "autonomously," causing it to rip itself into pieces.Despite the company hailing the test as an important step forward, the blast was a significant setback compared to its previous test flight, which saw Starship's upper stage slow its descent before dropping into the ocean.On the plus side, though, the rocket's massive Super Heavy booster managed to get caught by the company's "Mechazilla" tower for the second time overall."The most probable root cause for the loss of ship was identified as a harmonic response several times stronger in flight than had been seen during testing, which led to increased stress on hardware in the propulsion system," the company posited. "The subsequent propellant leaks exceeded the venting capability of the ships attic area and resulted in sustained fires."Despite showering Turks and Caicos with rocket debris, SpaceX claims that it didn't expect any "significant impacts" to "marine species or water quality" and that the rocket pieces "came down within the pre-planned Debris Response Area."Nonetheless, it was a precarious situation, with the Federal Aviation Administration forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to change course to avoid being struck.The agency has since launched an investigation to confirm any reports of property damage."SpaceX is working with the FAA to either close the mishap investigation or receive a flight safety determination, along with working on a license authorization to enable its next flight of Starship," the company wrote in its latest update.On that note, SpaceX also announced today that its next flight, dubbed Flight 8, could "launch as soon as Friday, February 28, pending regulatory approval."According to the company, the next flight will feature a Super Heavy booster with "upgraded avionics, including a more powerful flight computer, improved power and network distribution, and integrated smart batteries."Whether the launch will go better than its January attempt remains to be seen. A lot is riding on the spacecraft's success, as Musk has made it a core part of his ambitions to send humans to Mars as soon as next year.SpaceX still has plenty of work ahead of it. While its latest prototype technically reached space, a journey to the Red Planet's surface is orders of magnitude more complicated.Share This Article