Elon Musk keeps launching rockets — and that’s causing trouble for airlines

• Airlines are facing a growing headache over rocket launches after Starship’s fiery lift-off last week.
• Elon Musk’s mega-rocket exploded over the Turks and Caicos islands, sparking airspace closures and widespread chaos.
• Experts told BI it’s a sign of things to come, with the new commercial space race threatening more disruption for airlines.

Elon Musk celebrated Starship’s explosive launch last week, writing on X that “entertainment is guaranteed.” For some pilots and passengers, it was anything but entertaining.

Dramatic videos and images posted on social media showed fiery trails of debris streaking across the sky near the Turks and Caicos islands, minutes after the upper stage of SpaceX’s mammoth Starship rocket exploded shortly after launching for the seventh time on Thursday.

The rocket’s “rapid unscheduled disassembly” sparked chaos as some airspace throughout the Caribbean was closed for an hour and a half.

The Federal Aviation Administration activated a Debris Response Area, which it said is only used if a space vehicle’s debris falls outside identified hazard areas.

Numerous flights entered holding patterns, circling around as they waited for the debris to pass.

Four Delta Air Lines flights diverted for refueling purposes due to the closed airspace, an airline spokesperson told Business Insider. Flights from JetBlue and Amazon Air were also among those forced to unexpectedly change course, as the FAA warned there was a risk of being hit by chunks of Elon Musk’s rocket as it fell to Earth.

“SpaceX had a rocket launch and, uh, it didn’t go so well,” relayed one air traffic controller, per an audio recording archived by LiveATC.net. One pilot reported seeing “a major streak (of debris) going from at least 60 miles, with all these different colors.”

As the chaos set in, pilots complained to air traffic control and expressed concerns about fuel levels. One pilot from Spanish airline Iberia appeared to run out of patience, declaring mayday so he could pass through the debris response area and land in Puerto Rico.

Those not already heading to Puerto Rico couldn’t divert there, as one controller explained there was no parking space due to congestion, per LiveATC.net.

“It’s been a rough day today,” he added.

Rockets and planes face off

The incident — which saw the FAA launch an investigation and temporarily ground future Starship launches — is the latest disruption airlines have faced as a result of space launch activities.

Earlier this month, the Australian flag carrier Qantas spoke out about the disruption it has faced due to SpaceX.

It said it had to delay several flights between Johannesburg and Sydney due to the re-entry of SpaceX rockets over “an extensive area” of the southern Indian Ocean.

While the booster, or first stage, of a Falcon 9 is reusable, the upper stage is disposed of in the ocean. Qantas is asking SpaceX to be more precise with the areas and timings for such events.

Disruption has also occurred in both directions.

SpaceX was preparing to launch a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday morning but called off the launch with just 11 seconds to go. The incident was put down to an aircraft possibly encroaching on the launch zone, though it remains unclear which aircraft, if any, was to blame.

Space race puts airlines under pressure

Airlines and rocket companies will likely find themselves sharing the sky even more in the coming years as the commercial space race heats up.

Hours before Starship’s fiery demise, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin successfully launched its giant New Glenn rocket for the first time.

The Amazon cofounder’s rocket company joins a handful of rivals, including SpaceX and startup Rocket Lab, in successfully reaching orbit. All three companies are planning to dramatically increase the number of launches in the coming years, with SpaceX potentially planning as many as 25 Starship launches and 180 Falcon 9 launches in 2025.

“The problem is there because we have also not only an increase in the number of launches, but also an increase in the number of entities with launch capabilities,” Luciano Anselmo, an aerospace engineer at the Space Flight Dynamics Laboratory in Pisa, Italy, told BI.

“Just coordinating all these different actors is quite demanding. The system as it is up to now is under a little bit of stress,” he said.

Anselmo added that the increased cadence of launches and the inherent riskiness of the space industry mean further incidents like the Starship explosion are unavoidable.

Ewan Wright, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia who studies space debris, told Business Insider that unplanned disruption from rocket explosions and controlled re-entries of upper-stage rockets, such as the Falcon 9, can have a significant economic impact on airlines, with delays and diversions in the air more costly than those on the ground.

Out of control

The bigger concern for Wright and Anselmo, however, is uncontrolled entries — large satellites or rockets that are left abandoned in orbit to plunge down to Earth at random.

Unlike controlled re-entries or debris falling from rockets that explode mid-flight, it is hard to predict where these objects might fall.

“The uncertainties are massive,” said Wright, adding that forecasts are often so vague that they are “totally useless from an aviation perspective.”

One such incident happened in 2022, when part of China’s Long March 5B rocket made an uncontrolled re-entry into the atmosphere. In response, Spain briefly closed 100km of its airspace, although Italy and Portugal, which were also in the rocket’s path, did not. Long March 5B eventually splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

Although the individual chances of an aircraft being hit by a piece of debris from an uncontrolled re-entry are low, Anselmo said the risk of such an incident happening was starting to grow.

With the number of controlled and uncontrolled re-entries rising, Anselmo said regulators, launches, and airlines will eventually have to discuss who pays for the growing risk of disruption to commercial flights.

According to the Outer Space Treaty and Liability Convention, widely ratified agreements that form the basis of international space law, the “launching State” has absolute liability for any damage caused by falling space objects to the surface or to any aircraft. It is unclear whether that applies to travel disruption caused by such debris.

“If you do start closing airspace more and more frequently, then that is going to cost airlines money,” said Wright.

“I think this is a sign of things to come. These things have a price and they will happen more frequently,” he added.