We’re possibly one week away from witnessing the first flight of the upgraded Starship rocket, and things are heating up at SpaceX’s launch site. Literally.
A significant explosive event erupted at SpaceX’s facility in Texas during a test of Starship’s water deluge system on Sunday, according to a video captured by NASA Spaceflight. SpaceX is testing the deluge system ahead of Starship’s 12th test flight, which is currently slated to take place on May 12.
During a deluge test today, what seems to be an explosive event was observed in the deluge farm followed by the deluge shutting down.
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— StarbaseTracking (@TrackingTheSB) May 3, 2026
The company revealed last week that there were some issues with the deluge system, which uses water to absorb heat and energy from the rocket as it lifts off.
Spray it like you mean it
A live feed of SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas captured the explosion, as seen outside the deluge farm. In the video, massive amounts of water can be seen shooting upward, while an unidentified object, possibly a gas combustor, was tossed outside the test site. A few moments later, the system appears to shut down.
The incident likely took place during a test of the water deluge system in an effort to resolve some issues ahead of Starship’s upcoming flight. SpaceX released a mini-documentary series on its Starship rocket, titled ‘Test Like You Fly,’ last week, discussing the challenges of developing its fully reusable vehicle.
In the first episode of the series, the company revealed that during two static fire attempts of Starship’s B19 booster, the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) of the water deluge system went into an automatic abort. GSE is a massive steel plate installed under Starship’s orbital launch mount to eject a flow of pressurized water upward during the ignition of the rocket.
Sunday’s test of the deluge system may not have gone so smoothly, resulting in the explosive incident at Starbase. It’s not clear yet how the incident will affect Starship’s upcoming test flight.
Rocket showers
SpaceX famously launched Starship for the first time without a water deluge system in place. The rocket’s inaugural flight, which took place on April 20, 2023, resulted in significant damage to the launch pad as dust and debris from the launch were hurled into surrounding areas.
Afterwards, SpaceX got to work in building a powerful water deluge system, which it tested for the first time in July 2023. The system is designed to spray as much as 350,000 gallons of water during Starship ignition and liftoff, with most of the water vaporized by the heat of the rocket engines.
SpaceX is in the process of preparing for the launch debut of Starship Version 3, an upgraded version of the megarocket that’s bigger and more powerful. The highly anticipated test flight of the rocket has been delayed several times already.
Earlier this year, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that Starship V3’s debut flight would take place sometime during the second week of March. By mid-March, the rocket’s inaugural liftoff had moved to April as SpaceX continued to run tests on Starship and its engines. As it stands today, Starship V3 is scheduled to launch on May 12, with a potential backup date on May 13.
Last month, a test of Starship’s Raptor engines also resulted in a significant explosion at the McGregor test site. The engine may have experienced an anomaly during the test, leading to a huge plume of smoke that was followed by an explosion from the test stand itself.
At this point, explosions go hand-in-hand with rocket development at SpaceX as part of the company’s “fail fast, learn fast” philosophy. We’ll just have to wait and see if the rocket is ready for liftoff by next week.
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