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SpaceX Starship blew its top during rocket fueling test (updated)
Update: SpaceX has released an official statement indicating that Starship Mk1’s November 20th failure came after a decision to intentionally pressurize the rocket prototype to its limits. This likely means that the test was to max flight pressures and not an intentional burst test, so Starship’s dome failure is still a significant concern and was definitely not planned.
More importantly, SpaceX says that it had already decided to retire Starship Mk1 before any kind of flight testing, treating the vehicle as a pathfinder. Instead, SpaceX will build and use Starship Mk3 – the next Boca Chica prototype – for Starship’s first attempted skydiver-style landing and 20 km (12 mi) flight test.
SpaceX statement on the above test and incident: pic.twitter.com/r1ReRYhUhz— Michael Sheetz (@thesheetztweetz) November 21, 2019
SpaceX’s first full-scale Starship prototype has suffered a significant failure during testing, destroying or severely damaging large sections of the rocket. However, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has already commented on the anomaly and is not all that concerned.
On November 20th, SpaceX – having canceled a planned road closure the day prior – unexpectedly requested a last-second road closure and entered into a much more serious round of testing with Starship Mk1, the rocket’s first full-scale prototype. This followed testing on November 18th that concluded with Starship Mk1’s very first ‘breath’ – some venting activity near the end of a tank proof test. SpaceX technicians spent the next 36 or so hours inspecting and working on Mk1, presumably looking for and patching minor leaks along its tank section.
The November 20th testing progressed far faster than the previous round of tests and Starship Mk1 was quickly venting again. Soon after that, frost began to appear on the exterior of its steel liquid oxygen and methane tanks, a telltale sign that some form of cryogenic testing was ongoing. Based on a distinct lack of activity at the nearby flare stack, SpaceX was using liquid oxygen (LOX) or liquid nitrogen (LN2) to verify that Starship performs as expected when filled with supercool propellant.
After initial venting and visible frost formation, SpaceX appeared to push forward, rapidly loading Starship Mk1 with LOX or LN2. This progress was easily visible thanks to the fact that the mass and pressure of all that cryogenic liquid made quick work of the slight imperfections on the exterior of Starship’s steel hull, turning the vehicle’s reflection from a speckled patchwork to an almost mirror-like finish. Roughly half an hour later, the otherwise peaceful scene was interrupted by the rapid failure of Starship Mk1’s upper LOX tank dome, instantly thrown several hundred feet into the air.
Seconds later, the crumpled upper half of Starship Mk1’s tank section appeared out of the clouds created and began hemorrhaging a huge volume of liquid oxygen, immediately boiling and vaporizing as it was exposed to the Earth’s comparatively white-hot atmosphere. Impressively, Starship appeared to remain functional after its top quite literally blew off, and the vehicle rapidly detanked and appeared to safe itself. Some ten minutes after the overpressure event, the freed liquid oxygen had boiled to nothing and Starship appeared to be quiet.
By all appearances, Starship Mk1 appeared to perform extremely well as an integrated system up to the point that its upper tank dome failed. The first frame from LabPadre’s stream with anything visibly amiss explicitly implicates the weld connecting the LOX dome to the cylindrical body of Starship’s LOX tank, point to a bad weld joint as the likeliest source of the failure. Although that hardware failure is unfortunate, Mk1’s loss will hopefully guide improvements in Starship’s design and manufacturing procedures.
Moving forward
Minutes after the anomaly was broadcast on several unofficial livestreams of SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acknowledged Starship Mk1’s failure in a tweet, telegraphing a general lack of worry. Of note, Musk indicated that Mk1 was valuable mainly as a manufacturing pathfinder, entirely believable but also partially contradicting his September 2019 presentation, in which he pretty clearly stated that Mk1 would soon be launched to ~20 km to demonstrate Starship’s exotic new skydiver landing strategy.
Musk says that instead of repairing Starship Mk1, SpaceX’s Boca Chica team will move directly to Starship Mk3, a significantly more advanced design that has benefitted from the numerous lessons learned from building and flying Starhopper and fabricating Starship Mk1. The first Starship Mk3 ring appears to have already been prepared, but SpaceX’s South Texas focus has clearly been almost entirely on preparing Starship Mk1 for wet dress rehearsal, static fire, and flight tests. After today’s failure, it sounds like Mk1 will most likely be retired early and replaced as soon as possible by Mk3.
Above all else, the most important takeaway from today’s Starship Mk1 anomaly is that the vehicle was a very early prototype and SpaceX likely wants to have vehicle failures occur on the ground or in-flight. As long as no humans are at risk, pushing Starship to failure (or suffering unplanned failures like today’s) can only serve to benefit and improve the vehicle’s design, especially when the failed hardware can be recovered intact (ish) and carefully analyzed.
A step further, SpaceX is simultaneously building a second (and third) Starship prototype at its companion Cocoa, Florida facilities, and Starship Mk2 is nearly finished. Coincidentally, technicians installed its last tank dome – the same dome that failed on Mk1 – just days ago, and any insight that the Boca Chica team can gather from Mk1’s troubles will almost certainly be applied to Mk2, whether that means reinforcing its existing domes or fully replacing the upper dome with an improved design.
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Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.
Tesla confirmed this morning that it has sent the first production units, manufactured with no steering wheel or pedals, to on-road testing in Austin, sharing video of the first rides with no human controls.
The lack of steering wheels and pedals in the Cybercab aligns with Tesla’s self-certification of Robotaxi as Level 4 SAE, a platform it plans to make widespread through internal vehicles and customer-owned cars that will operate and generate revenue for individuals.
The start of these engineering tests is a major signal for Tesla, which plans to bring driverless, wheel-less, and pedal-less Cybercabs to market in the coming months. With production already well underway at Gigafactory Texas, where the Cybercab is built, there is some inclination to believe the first public rides could happen sooner rather than later.
Engineering tests of the first production Cybercab have begun in Austin pic.twitter.com/fk3KQvcE8a
— Tesla (@Tesla) June 30, 2026
Tesla’s engineering tests will put the Cybercab in real-world scenarios, testing not only the hardware, but more importantly, the software that drives the car around Austin with nobody supervising it within the car.
This is perhaps the biggest part of the internal testing process, especially prior to allowing regular, everyday people to hail the Cybercab for an autonomous ride. These early rides serve as a true benchmark for Tesla: How many rides can it achieve safely? How many miles did it travel consecutively without needing an intervention? What scenarios challenge the Full Self-Driving suite the most?
The proper precautions have already been put into place as well, as Tesla released the First Responders Guide to Cybercab over the weekend, ensuring that emergency services have 24/7 access to Robotaxi Assistance, as well as other boundaries, such as Geofencing features that can be used to redirect autonomous vehicle traffic due to accidents, road closures, construction, or maintenance.
Cybercab seems genuinely close to being added to the Robotaxi fleet in Austin, but Tesla has prioritized safety throughout this entire process. Therefore, we think it could be months before it truly starts giving rides to the public. People have been frustrated with this, but Robotaxi in Austin has a tremendous safety record so far, so the slow rollout has kept people safe and accidents to a minimum.
The most important thing is that Tesla continues to show consistent progress in the Cybercab’s ramp-up toward fleet addition. A few weeks back, we saw the EPA reward the Cybercab a Certificate of Conformity, allowing it to enter the stream of commerce. Then, we saw Tesla add decals, signaling that it was likely about to start testing it publicly. That has now happened.
The next big move will be the announcement of the first rides, so this Summer should be filled with anticipation.
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