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By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said on Friday that the previous day's explosion of a SpaceX Starship spacecraft disrupted about 240 flights, with space debris concerns requiring more than two dozen of those planes to divert.
It was the second straight explosion of a SpaceX test launch.
The FAA on Thursday issued ground stops that lasted for just over an hour for aircraft departing for four Florida airports -- Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and Palm Beach. The FAA said the incident resulted in 171 departure delays, 28 flights were diverted, and 40 airborne flights were held an average of 22 minutes while the agency's Debris Response Area was active. The 171 planes had an average delay of 28 minutes.
Also on Thursday, the FAA said it was requiring SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation into loss of the Starship vehicle.
Last month, the FAA approved SpaceX's launch license for Thursday's test flight while its investigation into the company's previous Starship failure remained open.
In doing so, the FAA said it reviewed SpaceX's license application and early details from the company's mishap investigation before determining that Starship's eighth flight could proceed.
Videos on social media showed fiery debris streaking through the skies at dusk near south Florida and the Bahamas. Starship broke up in space shortly after it began to spin uncontrollably with its engines cut off, a SpaceX live stream of the mission showed.
The failure of the eighth Starship test comes just over a month after the seventh also ended in an explosive failure. The back-to-back mishaps occurred in early mission phases that SpaceX has easily surpassed previously, a setback for a program Elon Musk sought to speed up this year.
On Friday, Musk called Thursday's explosion "a minor setback."
Responding to another post on his social media platform X, Musk wrote: "Progress is measured by time. The next ship will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks."
The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket system is central to Musk's plan to send humans to Mars as soon as the turn of the decade.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by David Gregorio)
