A massive explosion shook Elon Musk’s SpaceX testing site at Massey, Texas, on Wednesday night, June 18, 2025, stopping plans for the next Starship launch in their tracks.
The blast happened just before 11 p.m. local time, right as Ship 36 was set for a static fire test. This test fires up the rocket’s engines while it’s locked to the ground to make sure everything’s ready for a real launch. But instead of a controlled test, witnesses saw a huge fireball burst out, with debris flying across the site. Videos on X and livestreams from NASASpaceflight.com captured the chaos, showing flames and smoke lighting up the night sky.
ANOMALY! Just before Ship 36 was set to Static Fire, it blew up at SpaceX Masseys!
Live on X and YT:https://t.co/GPjZIX1Zyd pic.twitter.com/CfZhDeSGae
— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) June 19, 2025SpaceX quickly shared a statement on X, saying, “A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation, and all personnel are safe and accounted for.” They’re working with local police and fire crews to secure the area and make sure nearby residents are safe. No one was hurt, but the Starship prototype was destroyed, and the test site might be damaged too.
On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11 p.m. CT, the Starship preparing for the tenth flight test experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase. A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 19, 2025The company was aiming for June 29 to launch Starship’s tenth test flight, a big step for the world’s biggest rocket. Now, that date’s up in the air. SpaceX needs to figure out what went wrong and check if the test stand at Massey can still be used. They might have to switch to another rocket, like Ship 37, which could push things back even further.
This isn’t the first time Starship has hit trouble in 2025. Earlier this year, two test flights ended in explosions—one over the Caribbean and another over the Atlantic. Just last month, another Starship broke apart over the Indian Ocean. Each failure has brought investigations from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), slowing things down with safety checks and airspace closures. Some posts on X show frustration, with people wondering if SpaceX can get Starship right. Others say these explosions are part of testing something so new and huge.
Starship is key to Elon Musk’s dream of sending people to the Moon and Mars. It’s built to be reusable, which could make space trips way cheaper. NASA’s counting on Starship for its Artemis program to land astronauts on the Moon by 2027. But with this latest explosion, that timeline might be at risk. SpaceX says every failure teaches them something, and they’re already working with the FAA to find out what caused the blast.
