A booster rocket built to launch Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft went up in flames after an explosion during a ground test on Monday.
The SpaceX billionaire said on Twitter that his team was assessing the damage and that the launch pad at Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas, was temporarily closed for safety reasons.
Depending on the damage, the highly anticipated orbital test flight of the Starship system could be delayed. Mr Musk had hoped it would take place this month.
A fireball at the base of Booster 7 was caught on camera by news website NASASpaceflight.com.
Mr Musk said the issue was caused by a spin start test on all 33 of the rocket's powerful Raptor engines at once.
“Cryogenic fuel is an added challenge, as it evaporates to create fuel-air explosion risk in a partially oxygen atmosphere like Earth,” Mr Musk tweeted.
“That said, we have a lot of sensors to detect this.
“This particular issue, however, was specific to the engine spin start test (Raptor has a complex start sequence). Going forward, we won’t do a spin start test with all 33 engines at once.”
He said he visited the site late on Monday.
SpaceX is building Starship for deep-space flights, including uncrewed and crewed missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
The system is fully reusable and includes a first-stage booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft called Starship
A prototype of Starship was moved to its launch pad last week in preparation for an orbital test flight.
The system has been in development for many years and has finished high-altitude tests, but it has not yet completed an orbital flight.
Before the test flight can go ahead, SpaceX must obtain a launch licence from the Federal Aviation Administration in the US.
The company also has to meet 75 conditions set by the organisation to continue its work at Starbase.
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
$1,000 award for 1,000 days on madrasa portal
Daily cash awards of $1,000 dollars will sweeten the Madrasa e-learning project by tempting more pupils to an education portal to deepen their understanding of math and sciences.
School children are required to watch an educational video each day and answer a question related to it. They then enter into a raffle draw for the $1,000 prize.
“We are targeting everyone who wants to learn. This will be $1,000 for 1,000 days so there will be a winner every day for 1,000 days,” said Sara Al Nuaimi, project manager of the Madrasa e-learning platform that was launched on Tuesday by the Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, to reach Arab pupils from kindergarten to grade 12 with educational videos.
“The objective of the Madrasa is to become the number one reference for all Arab students in the world. The 5,000 videos we have online is just the beginning, we have big ambitions. Today in the Arab world there are 50 million students. We want to reach everyone who is willing to learn.”
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
India squads
Test squad against Afghanistan: Rahane (c), Dhawan, Vijay, Rahul, Pujara, Karun, Saha, Ashwin, Jadeja, Kuldeep, Umesh, Shami, Pandya, Ishant, Thakur.
T20 squad against Ireland and England: Kohli (c), Dhawan, Rohit, Rahul, Raina, Pandey, Dhoni, Karthik, Chahal, Kuldeep, Sundar, Bhuvneshwar, Bumrah, Pandya, Kaul, Umesh.
ODI squad against England: Kohli (c), Dhawan, Rohit, Rahul, Shreyas, Rayudu, Dhoni, Karthik, Chahal, Kuldeep, Sundar, Bhuvneshwar, Bumrah, Pandya, Kaul, Umesh
