AN exploding SpaceX Starship caused chaos in the sky - as planes swerved to avoid it and the flaming wreck caused property damage.
Flights of the Elon Musk rocket system have now been grounded following the disastrous mishap in South Texas on Thursday.
Aircrafts were forced to quickly avoid the flaming ship as debris caused havoc to the surrounding area.
The vehicle broke apart 10 minutes into an unmanned test flight - resulting in a shower of debris which massively impacted surrounding areas.
Extraordinary photos from the event show debris glowing bright orange and white as it streaked across the sky.
The carnage left illuminating streaks through the atmosphere.
Matt Morley was piloting a Minnesota-based Club Jet from the Chicago Midway International Airport bound for Turks and Caicos at the time of the incident.
Morley told CNN he initially thought it was a meteor shower.
Matt said: “Then my next thought was, ‘Oh man I hope there was no one on that.’
“I’m glad we took extra fuel.
“It gave us lots of options and I had a really good second in command with me who made my job easier calculating our fuel reserves and finding a suitable alternate.”
The pilot said he had to divert his plane to Exuma International Airport in the Bahamas after the airspace was shut down.
Matt described this encounter as “not too stressful, just crazy to witness.”
Doctor Benjamin Fernando, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Earth and planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins, said: “This event was over one of the most populated areas in the Caribbean, with one of the largest things we’ve ever seen re-enter the atmosphere.
“So if (sonic boom property damage) is going to happen, it’ll be an event like this that does cause it.
“They’re not huge.
“But you’ll still feel and notice them.
"So this isn’t the sort of thing that you need to be worried about, that it’s going to collapse your house — but (it) can cause damage to things like windows, roofing tiles, etc.”
Government officials in Turks and Caicos are now investigating reports of property damage caused by the exploding ship, according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The wreckage shower that resulted from the blunder created a “Debris Response Area” that forced planes to reroute, causing a string of travel delays.
When asked to clarify what constituted a “hazard area” and which locations were closed to air traffic during launch, the FAA said that its “investigation is ongoing” and “information is preliminary and subject to change.”
Some unverified social media reports have shown physical debris on the island.
The ground velocity of the event was “about 10 micrometers per second”.
This is an event equivalent to standing near a road and feeling a truck drive by.
Here's what you need to know...
SpaceX is a cash-flushed rocket company that wants to take man to Mars.
It was set up by eccentric billionaire Elon Musk in 2002 and is based in Hawthorne, California.
SpaceX's first aim was to build rockets that can autonomously land back on Earth for refurbishment and re-use.
The technology makes launching and operating space flights more efficient, and therefore cheaper.
SpaceX currently uses its reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to fly cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) for Nasa.
It also carries satellites and other space tech into orbit for various government agencies and multinational companies.
The company took astronauts to the ISS for the first time in 2020.
Other future missions involve carrying tourists to the ISS and astronauts to the Moon and Mars.
Musk has repeatedly said he believes humanity must colonise Mars to save itself from extinction.
He plans to get a SpaceX rocket to the Red Planet by 2027.
SpaceX has been aggressively perusing a campaign to perfect the design of its Starship launch system since 2023.
The system consists of two parts - The Super Heavy rocket booster, which gives the initial burst of power at lift-off and the Starship spacecraft that rides atop it.
After separating from Super Heavy a few minutes into flight, the Starship spacecraft fires up its own engines and continues its own journey.
This was the seventh test flight of the SpaceX rocket, which this time, did not survive long enough to make it out of the atmosphere.
The explosion that occurred Thursday happened less than midway through Starship’s flight path.
It’s not clear whether the mishap investigation will force significant delays for Starship testing.
Elon appeared to signal on Thursday that he did not anticipate significant delays, despite the Starship loss.
He said in one social media that, based on a “preliminary” look at the problem, “Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.”
It is also not known how Elon's role in the incoming presidential administration may affect oversight of SpaceX.
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