Watch: Elon Musk's Starship explodes in Indian Ocean seconds after water landing

SpaceX successfully guided its massive Starship spacecraft to a dramatic splashdown in the middle of the Indian Ocean on Saturday, ending the nearly hour-long mission with a fiery explosion exactly where mission planners had intended.

The spacecraft launched earlier from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas atop the giant Super Heavy booster, beginning another high-profile test of Elon Musk’s next-generation rocket system designed for missions to the Moon and Mars.

After separating from the Super Heavy booster and continuing its journey through space, Starship travelled across the globe before beginning its controlled return toward Earth. The spacecraft targeted a remote region in the Indian Ocean for its final descent, where recovery teams and tracking vessels monitored the mission from below.

WATCH STARSHIP EXPLODES IN INDIAN OCEAN

As Starship plunged back through Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft attempted a landing burn designed to slow the vehicle before impact. During the final moments of descent, the massive rocket flipped into its landing orientation above the ocean, a critical manoeuvre SpaceX has been refining through repeated test flights.

Moments later, Starship slammed into the water in what SpaceX described as a “hard splashdown,” triggering a massive explosion visible across the surrounding ocean surface. The dramatic end came precisely within the planned landing zone, marking another controlled conclusion to a highly experimental mission.

The flight still represented a significant achievement for SpaceX, which continues using rapid test launches to gather data on Starship’s performance during ascent, orbital flight, re-entry, and landing operations. Engineers are particularly focused on mastering the extreme heat and aerodynamic forces encountered during re-entry, as well as the difficult landing flip maneuver.

Starship is the largest and most powerful spacecraft ever built and forms the core of SpaceX’s long-term ambitions for deep-space exploration. Nasa also plans to use a modified version of Starship for future Artemis missions that aim to return astronauts to the Moon.

Although the spacecraft ended the mission in an explosive ocean impact, the ability to guide Starship across the planet and hit a precise splashdown target demonstrated the growing sophistication of SpaceX’s flight systems and recovery operations.