Elon Musk dealt second major blow as another disaster strikes

Samuel O'Brient

Sun, Mar 9, 2025, 7:03 AM 4 min read

One of Musk’s companies just experienced a major setback

Musk might have thought his week couldn’t get any worse after Trump curbed his power. But on March 6, a disaster struck one of his companies and not for the first time, causing instant chaos and impacting other industries in the process.

SpaceX, Musk’s space exploration and technology company, recently launched a massive rocket on a test flight, and it quickly spiraled out of control.

“The SpaceX Starship rocket that Elon Musk is promising to one day bring to Mars exploded eight minutes into its eighth test flight,” reports TheStreet’s Veronika Bondarenko.

This isn’t the first SpaceX flight to experience disaster in mid-air, and it’s not even the first one this year. On January 16, 2025, a starship from Musk’s company exploded during a test flight, forcing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to halt flights due to falling debris from the rocket temporarily.

Less than three months later, the company experienced a concerningly similar phenomenon, in which another SpaceX starship exploded during a test flight. As with the disastrous January launch, flights had to be diverted due to the incident. Per the Financial Times:

“Eight minutes after the 400ft rocket system launched from the company’s Starbase in Texas, the upper-stage spacecraft’s engines malfunctioned and the vehicle spun out of control before exploding in the atmosphere above the Caribbean. The lower-stage super heavy booster returned to the launch pad after separation and was caught by mechanical arms.”

In an X post, SpaceX claimed that its team “immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.”

However, the FAA has stated that, following the incident, it will still require SpaceX to conduct a mishap investigation into what caused the failure.

Can Musk make it to Mars, or will mankind have to find another way?

Musk is well known for his focus on colonizing Mars, specifically by using SpaceX to help make space tourism accessible. While he successfully took electric vehicles (EVs) through Tesla, these setbacks suggest that his quest to lead humanity into space may be more difficult.

“A second failure in as many months will raise further questions about the design and viability of Starship, the largest rocket ever built and pivotal to Musk’s ambitions to add to his network of thousands of broadband satellites, win more contracts from NASA, and eventually transport humans to Mars,” the Financial Times notes.

These incidents aren’t the first explosions that SpaceX rockets have experienced. In 2015, the launch of its CRS-7 Mission ended in disaster when a spacecraft exploded, which NASA attributed to a design error.

Although Musk describes the most recent SpaceX explosion as a “minor setback,” the back-to-back disaster suggests this could become a trend. If it does, Musk will likely have an increasingly difficult time building trust in his company and its technology at a time when rival companies are making progress.

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One of Musk’s companies just experienced a major setback

Can Musk make it to Mars, or will mankind have to find another way?

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