FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Falling debris from a rocket launch streaked over the South Florida skies Thursday evening.
SpaceX launched a Starship mega-rocket from Texas, losing contact with the spacecraft within minutes of the test flight.
Wreckage was seen across Florida skies and even in the Dominican Republic.
The FAA also grounded flights for a time at South Florida airports because of this
Flights in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando had been halted for about an hour following the failed launch by SpaceX with their largest and most powerful rocket yet.
Linda Burt, a witness, said, “I thought it was a meteor. It’s pretty cool.”
A giant orb jetted across the sky.
Mary Pecora, another witness, said, “It was just like glitter spread out and low, very low.”
However, it wasn’t a meteor shower, but rather a space launch mishap.
Video from SpaceX shows the Starship launch around 6:30 p.m. Thursday.
About nine minutes into the mission, the roughly 400-foot ship spun out of control along with engine failures, resulting in Mission Control losing contact.
Eric, a visitor from Buffalo, New York, said “I came out, I looked up — it started here and went across. It got brighter and brighter.”
Eventually, the unmanned spacecraft could be seen in what SpaceX is calling a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” This video shows the craft beginning to break apart.
A witness said, “Wasn’t scared at all. I just didn’t know what it was.”
That debris fell into the Atlantic.
SpaceX stated they will review data to gather a better understanding of the root cause for additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability.
Now, SpaceX will lead the mishap investigation into what went wrong, and the Federal Aviation Administration will actively be involved.