After back-to-back explosions, SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship again on Tuesday evening, but fell short of the main objectives when the spacecraft tumbled out of control and broke apart.
The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket blasted off on its ninth demo from Starbase, SpaceX’s launch site at the southern tip of Texas. Residents voted this month to organize as an official city.
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SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
People watch as SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship is prepared for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship stands ready for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
CEO Elon Musk 's SpaceX hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed because the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning as it skimmed space toward an uncontrolled landing in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX later confirmed that the spacecraft experienced “a rapid unscheduled disassembly,” or burst apart. “Teams will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test,” the company said in an online statement.
Musk noted in a post on X it was a “big improvement” from the two previous demos, which ended in flaming debris over the Atlantic. Despite the latest setback, he promised a faster launch pace moving forward, with a Starship soaring every three to four weeks for the next three flights.
It was the first time one of Musk's Starships — intended for moon and Mars travel — flew with a recycled booster. There were no plans to catch the booster with giant chopsticks back at the launch pad, with the company instead pushing it to its limits. Contact with the booster was lost at one point, and it slammed into the Gulf of Mexico in pieces as the spacecraft continued toward the Indian Ocean.
Then the spacecraft went out of control, apparently due to fuel leaks.
“Not looking great with a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today,” said SpaceX flight commentator Dan Huot. The company had been looking to test the spacecraft’s heat shield during a controlled reentry.
Communication ceased before the spacecraft came down, and SpaceX ended its webcast soon afterward.
The previous two Starships never made it past the Caribbean. The demos earlier this year ended just minutes after liftoff, raining wreckage into the ocean. No injuries or serious damage were reported, although airline travel was disrupted. The Federal Aviation Administration last week cleared Starship for another flight, expanding the hazard area and pushing the liftoff outside peak air travel times.
Besides taking corrective action and making upgrades, SpaceX modified the latest spacecraft’s thermal tiles and installed special catch fittings. This one was meant to sink in the Indian Ocean, but the company wanted to test the add-ons for capturing future versions back at the pad, just like the boosters.
NASA needs SpaceX to make major strides over the next year with Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — in order to land astronauts back on the moon. Next year’s moonshot with four astronauts will fly around the moon, but will not land. That will happen in 2027 at the earliest and require a Starship to get two astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back off again.
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SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
People watch as SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship is prepared for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship stands ready for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
TENERIFE, Canary Islands (AP) — The first passengers to be evacuated from the hantavirus-hit cruise ship that is off Spain's Canary Islands arrived Sunday afternoon in Madrid, where they are being taken to a military hospital.
Spanish nationals were the first to leave the MV Hondius, which remains anchored off Tenerife, the largest island in the Spanish archipelago off West Africa's coast. The ship arrived early the same morning.
Planes carrying French and Canadian nationals left Tenerife after the Spanish plane. A Dutch plane was due to depart with Germans, Belgians and Greeks, while an American plane was expected to reach Tenerife around 5:30 p.m. local time (1630 GMT), according to FlightRadar 24, which shows live aircraft flight tracking details.
Maria van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's top epidemiologist, said that a number of other flights were expected to arrive Sunday, including ones to repatriate passengers to Turkey, the United Kingdom and Ireland.
None of the more than 140 people on the Hondius has shown symptoms of the virus, officials from Spain's health ministry, WHO and cruise company Oceanwide Expeditions said.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus sought to reassure the public, repeating on Sunday that the risk for the general public from the outbreak is low.
Even so, those disembarking and personnel working at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife wore protective gear during the evacuation process, including face masks, hazmat suits and respirators. Video obtained by The Associated Press showed passengers on the tarmac donning similar suits and being sprayed down with disinfectant.
A WHO spokesperson didn't immediately respond to a question from the AP about why such security protocols were being taken, despite officials' repeated reassurances about the low general risk from the virus.
Passengers and some crew members from more than 20 nationalities on board will be evacuated throughout Sunday into Monday.
After reaching Madrid, those evacuated on the first plane will be under quarantine, Spanish health authorities say. Only the 14 Spanish nationals on board will quarantine in the country.
Authorities have said that the passengers and crew members disembarking will be checked for symptoms, have no contact with the local population and will only be taken off the ship once evacuation flights are ready to fly them to their destinations. Tedros and Spain’s health and interior ministers are supervising the operation in Tenerife.
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday thanked the Canary Islands for allowing the arrival of the Hondius.
Hantavirus usually spreads when people inhale contaminated residue of rodent droppings and isn’t easily transmitted between people. But the Andes virus detected in the cruise ship outbreak may be able to spread between people in rare cases. Symptoms usually show between one and eight weeks after exposure.
Three people have died since the outbreak, and five passengers who left the ship are infected with hantavirus, which can cause life-threatening illness.
Passengers and crew members disembarking are leaving behind their luggage, and are allowed to take only a small bag with essential items, a cellphone, a charger, and documentation.
Some crew, as well as the body of a passenger who died on board, will remain on the ship, which will sail on to Rotterdam, Netherlands, where it will undergo disinfection, Spanish authorities said.
The expected sailing time to Rotterdam is around five days, the cruise company said.
The United Kingdom will send planes to evacuate its citizens. Americans on board will be quarantined at a medical center in Nebraska.
Twenty-nine people will be on board the Dutch charter flight, including Dutch nationals and people of other nationalities, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said.
The five French passengers being repatriated Sunday will be hospitalized for 72 hours for monitoring, after which they will quarantine at home for 45 days, France's Foreign Ministry said.
U.K. passengers and crew will be hospitalized for observation once they are flown home, British authorities say.
Australia is sending a plane, expected to arrive on Monday, to evacuate its nationals and those from nearby countries such as New Zealand and unspecified Asian countries, Spanish Health Minister Mónica García said. Its plane will be the last to leave Tenerife, she said.
Norway has sent an ambulance plane to Tenerife with personnel trained to transport patients with high-risk infections, its Directorate for Civil Protection told public broadcaster NRK.
The ambulance plane is owned by the European Union, but operated by Norway.
British Army medics have parachuted onto the remote South Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of hantavirus.
The patient was a passenger on the MV Hondius and disembarked last month.
The U.K. defense ministry says a team of six paratroopers and two medical clinicians jumped Saturday from a Royal Air Force transport plane, which also dropped oxygen and medical equipment.
Tristan da Cunha is Britain’s most remote inhabited overseas territory, about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) from the nearest inhabited island, St. Helena. The group of volcanic islands has no airstrip and is usually accessible only by boat on a six-day voyage from Cape Town, South Africa.
Meanwhile, a Spanish woman in the southeastern province of Alicante suspected of being infected tested negative for hantavirus, Spanish health authorities said Saturday.
The woman was a passenger on the same flight as the Dutch woman who died in Johannesburg after traveling on the cruise ship.
Suman Naishadham reported from Madrid. Angela Charlton in Paris, Jill Lawless in London, and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin, contributed to this report.
British Army medics parachute onto the south Atlantic territory of Tristan da Cunha, where one of the 221 residents has a suspected case of hanatavirus, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (British Ministry of Defence via AP)
A Spanish government plane takes off with passengers from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)
Passengers are disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers sit inside a bus after being disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers stand next to a Spanish government plane after disembarking from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the airport in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Arturo Rodriguez)
A passenger waves to the Guardia Civil officers as they are disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers watch as others are disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers are disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers are disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers stand on the deck of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius after its arrival at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers are being disembarked from the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
A Civil Guard border police stands guard following the arrival of hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
Civil Guard border police officers following the arrival of hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers and crew at the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius after arriving at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Passengers at the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius after arriving at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
A passenger stands at the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius after its arrival at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Civil Guard officers patrol next to the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius after its arrival at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
View from the bridge of the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius after its arrival at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger checks his camera inside his cabin on the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
A passenger on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, takes a photo of the ship's weighing anchor in Praia, during the voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
Passengers on the the hantavirus-stricken cruise ship, MV Hondius, watch epidemiologists board the boat in Praia, during their voyage to Spain's port of Tenerife, May 6, 2026. (AP Photo)
The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is seen at anchor after arriving at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is seen at anchor after arriving at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is seen at anchor after arriving at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Workers set up temporary shelters in the area where passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship are expected to arrive at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, speaks to the media near the area where passengers from the MV Hondius are expected to arrive at the port of Port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Saturday, May 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
The hantavirus-stricken cruise ship MV Hondius is seen at anchor after arriving at the port of Granadilla in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, Sunday, May 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
