The tallest and most powerful rocket ever built blasted off from SpaceX's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on Monday (Sept. 28) at 8.49 a.m. ET (7.49 a.m. local time).

Soon after launch, one of Starship's 33 engines failed. A tense few minutes followed while the mission team deliberated over whether the mission should continue to orbit. Eventually, the call came through: "Go for orbit."

A short fire of Starship's boosters nudged the rocket into orbit, where it zoomed around Earth at a highest point of 170 miles (275 kilometers) above the planet's surface.

However, after successfully deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites, SpaceX decided not to leave Starship up in space for the remainder of the mission, which was originally expected to last 10 hours.

The rocket splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after 3 hours and 8 minutes, and then promptly exploded with a fiery bang. An explosive landing was always expected for Starship, and there were audible cheers during that part of the SpaceX livestream of the mission, but SpaceX would have probably preferred to have kept its rocket intact — like it did on Flight 13.

SpaceX called this mission, Starship's Flight 14, the company's "most ambitious launch to date" during its livestream. Prior to this launch, Starship had only flown suborbitally, and this was SpaceX's first attempt to send its flagship rocket into orbit. The company said reaching orbit represents the "next phase" for Starship toward becoming a fully reusable rocket.

Starship flight 14

The day started with promise for SpaceX: Engineers weren't tracking any holds in the lead-up to launch; tanking and launch progressed smoothly; and Starship served up some spectacular images of Earth as it raced into space.

Shortly after launch, Starship's booster separated and safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. Then the problems started. Starship had lost one of its engines. Initially, commentary on SpaceX's livestream suggested that officials planned to abandon the push for orbit, but after several tense minutes, they confirmed the attempt was a go.

The latest mission had a few objectives. In addition to making it to orbit, SpaceX deployed Starlink V3 satellites, designed to boost the speeds and reliability of the internet services provided by its satellite megaconstellation.

The mission also tested the Starship's booster, which had experienced some hardware and software modifications after Flight 13.

SpaceX has experienced multiple setbacks with Starship. The seventh and eighth Starship test flights exploded and rained fiery debris from the sky. The ninth flight fell short of its target, and a Starship exploded on the launchpad during a routine test leading up to the 10th mission. However, Starship did end up having a successful 10th flight in August 2025, despite taking some damage, and its 11th run, in October, was clean.

The last two flights, in March and July 2026, saw successful launches and controlled landings but experienced booster problems.

To the moon?

The stakes are high for the rocket: Starship's success could be essential for NASA's plans to return humans to the moon in early 2028. The U.S. space agency needs a commercial lunar lander to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface during the upcoming Artemis IV mission. (Artemis III, a practice attempt above Earth, is slated for 2027.)

NASA wants to take astronauts to the moon in its Orion spacecraft, as tested in the Artemis II mission. Once in lunar orbit, the crew is then supposed to rendezvous with a commercial lander, which will take the astronauts to the surface and launch them back up to Orion for the trip home.

SpaceX has been developing a moon-landing variant of its Starship for that job. With rival Blue Origin (whose New Glenn rocket dramatically exploded in May) lagging behind, the Artemis program's success could be tied to Starship's.

During Artemis III next summer, NASA will test docking Orion with one or both of its commercial lander options in low Earth orbit. The space agency has made clear that lander readiness will determine which commercial provider gets to take astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2028.

There are some doubts about whether NASA will be ready by then. But today's Starship issues also leave key questions about whether SpaceX can meet the tight deadline.

'> SpaceX's Starship reaches orbit for the first time, then returns early and explodes

The spacecraft, known as USA 32 or Farrah III, was launched by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in 1988. Its mission, which was only fully declassified earlier this year, was to intercept Soviet radar and radio signals from space, according to Futura. The cylindrical spacecraft, whose shape has been described as a giant "tuna can," likely stopped functioning decades ago and has been silently circling Earth ever since. (It was nicknamed after actor Farrah Fawcett, in line with the NRO's former custom of naming its satellites after famous figures from the 1970s and '80s.)

On Sept. 17, Space-Track — the satellite observation arm of the U.S. Space Force — announced that USA 32 suffered a sudden "fragmentation" event four days earlier, on Sept. 13. This essentially means the spacecraft exploded, potentially breaking apart into dozens, hundreds or even thousands of pieces. However, the agency did not specify what had caused this explosion or how many pieces of debris were created. And, as of Sept. 28, no one else has been able to answer either question.

Other organizations have since confirmed the fragmentation event, including the private satellite-tracking company s2a systems, which photographed the largest remaining piece of USA 32 in orbit.

The explosion occurred 480 miles (775 kilometers) above Earth's surface, according to Spaceweather.com. Considering the satellite's speed, the resulting debris likely spread into a giant ring around Earth within 24 hours after the spacecraft's sudden breakup, a simulation from the website suggests.

What happened to USA 32?

It is still unclear what happened to the Cold War-era spacecraft, but there are several potential explanations.

Collisions with other satellites or smaller pieces of space junk are one of the most common causes of satellite breakups. But no one has reported any other spacecraft being impacted, and researchers can often predict potential space junk collisions days or weeks in advance, making these scenarios unlikely. However, it is possible that an undetected space rock struck the satellite at high speeds instead.

Another leading theory is that the satellite died of old age. It was likely not designed for long-term spaceflight, and after nearly four decades of being exposed to the harsh conditions of LEO, the spy craft may have simply broken down, similar to the demise of the NOAA-17 satellite in 2021.

"Old spacecraft carry batteries and leftover propellant," Spaceweather.com representatives wrote. "After 38 years of heating and cooling, a pressurized tank or a battery cell on USA 32 may have simply ruptured."

But it is also too soon to rule out that the satellite was hit by some form of anti-satellite weaponry, according to Spaceweather.com. Earlier this month, U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink revealed, for the first time, that the U.S. had launched unspecified weapons into orbit, and experts have long suspected that other countries, including China and Russia, possess similar technologies. (The latter country has already destroyed one satellite using Earth-based weaponry.)

However, there is currently no evidence that anti-satellite weapons were used in this instance, so "there may be nothing sinister about this event," Spaceweather.com representatives wrote.

Researchers will likely be able to establish the cause of the satellite's breakup by reverse-engineering the incident ‪—‬ first by identifying the resulting fragments, and then by retracing those pieces' trajectories back to the original explosion. However, this could take months, if not years. (For example, scientists are still trying to piece together what happened to the Boeing-made Intelsat 33e satellite, which similarly shattered out of nowhere in 2024.)

"The collision threat is real"

Regardless of the recent explosion's cause, experts are now concerned about the potential knock-on effects of its fallout.

The region of LEO where USA 32 exploded is thought to be home to at least 200 other satellites, and it is already littered with debris from a 2009 collision between American and Russian satellites. As a result, "the collision threat is real" for spacecraft in this area, Spaceweather.com representatives wrote, especially as the newly created fragments remain unquantified.

So far, the incident has not caused any issues or affected the launch of new spacecraft. For example, Russia went ahead with the Sept. 16 launch of a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above our planet, or roughly half the exploded satellite's altitude. (SpaceX also launched classified missions for the U.S. Space Force on Sept. 16 and Sept. 26, and it launched the first orbital test flight of its supersize Starship rocket on Sept. 28.)

Although the ISS and China's Tiangong space station are currently out of reach of the debris field, the fragments may shift over time as Earth's gravity and atmospheric drag pull them closer to our planet. In that case, the stations may have to carry out maneuvers to dodge the debris, as they have done dozens of times before.

Could it happen again?

As LEO becomes increasingly crowded with newly launched spacecraft, the risk that they will smash into one another or get struck by space junk has also shot up, which strongly suggests that this will not be the last fragmentation event.

Additionally, the longer these new spacecraft remain in orbit, the higher the chances they'll break apart suddenly due to accumulated wear and tear, as USA 32 may have. Previous research has also shown that if satellites were knocked offline, either due to a software malfunction or a powerful solar storm, they could start crashing into one another within days. And there's also the threat that they could be destroyed by anti-satellite weaponry —‬ a scenario that "worries" Live Science readers.

Some experts warn that, if we continue on our current path, we may be doomed to reach an irreversible tipping point, known as the Kessler syndrome, where the accumulation of space junk means we can no longer launch anything into space.

'> US Cold War-era spy satellite explodes above Earth — and nobody knows why

Launched on Aug. 30, the space telescope has already released its first images before its 300-megapixel camera is fully calibrated, capturing clusters of stars as blurry green rings. Once Roman's Wide Field Instrument is fully functional, the telescope should produce images as crisp as those from the Hubble Space Telescope but encompassing an area 100 times larger in each snap, NASA has stated. Experts hope to use these images to uncover more information about dark energy and possible habitable exoplanets.

With Roman's first test images now published, we asked our readers what they're most excited about with this new space telescope.

Over 270 readers responded, with the largest voting group, 57%, picking "Habitable exoplanets" as their response.

When talking about the possibility of life on other planets, one reader commented, "I'm sure the telescope will find plenty of new worlds outside our solar system, and a fair amount in habitable zones as well, but on if these planets have life of any sort I can't imagine any space telescope will [be] able to detect any signs."

Following behind this majority, 27% of readers chose "The possible source of dark energy." One reader reflected their interest in dark energy by writing, "Since dark matter and dark energy seem to make up most of our Universe, it seems imperative that we at least know SOMETHING about them. Except that they exist."

Another commenter echoed this statement, writing, "Dark energy and dark matter, according to our current knowledge, composes the majority of the mass of the Universe yet we are not really sure what they are and exactly what their influence is on our Universe. That is a huge gap in our knowledge base. It is not something that would be good to know, it is something we must know before we go where no man has gone before."

The smallest voting group, representing 9% of respondents, admitted, "I don't know, but I will use its pictures for my desktop wallpaper." If you fall into that group, we recommend checking out our Space Photo of the Week and Earth from Space series to get more image options for all your devices.

'> 'It is something we must know before we go where no man has gone before': Readers react to NASA's Roman telescope mission

The finding was more than 70 years in the making. In the 1940s, archaeologist William B. Emery found 13 mud stoppers, or seals that identify an object's owner, around the mouth of a tomb shaft at Saqqara. Each contained a series of four serekhs ‪—‬ a series of signs that gave the name of a ruler of Egypt. He identified two of the serekhs as belonging to a king named Djer and suggested that the other two belonged to a woman named Meretneith.

The presence of Meretneith's name in the serekhs indicates that she was a ruler of Egypt, he said. In a 1954 journal article, he published a black-and-white photograph of one of the mud stoppers. However, the poor quality of the photo meant many scholars were unconvinced.

Further complicating the investigation, all 13 of the mud stoppers, as well as the photograph's original glass plate, have gone missing since the excavations. Their whereabouts are "unknown," Susan Kelly, an Egyptology researcher at Macquarie University in Australia and co-author of the new paper, told Live Science in an email.

This leaves only the black-and-white photograph. In the new study, Kelly and Crystal Miller, a technician at the same university who is now getting a master's degree in bioarchaeology, used a series of complex techniques to create digital enhancements of the photo that elucidated more details of the serekhs.

"Our technique has revealed that in the second and third serekhs, the signs in the name portion of the emblem are consistent with the main sign used to write Meretneith's name" Kelly wrote in an article for The Conversation.

The "king's mother"

Meretneith's role would not have been the same as her male counterparts'. Inscriptions of her found at different sites do not use the serekh, but they do accord her titles such as "king's mother" or name her as being in charge of important departments, such as the treasury, Kelly and Miller wrote in their paper.

"Meretneith may have had the advantage of stepping on and off the rulership platform as necessitated by the political environment," they added, unlike male rulers who succeeded, reigned, died, and were buried by their successors." When necessary she could become the ruler, and when a male family member was able to rule, she could be a powerful royal family member who assisted the ruler. Her son King Den might have been the one to bury her.

The evidence suggests that she was a joint ruler with a man named Djer. We don't know for sure who Djer was, but he may have been her father, Kelly told Live Science in an email. She also may have acted as a regent for her son Den when he was too young to rule alone.

After her death, she was given a tomb of a similar size and construction to that of a ruler, excavations from 2023 suggest.

However, Eva-Maria Engel, a historian at the Humboldt University of Berlin who was not involved in the new study, disputed some of the study's findings. She studied the photograph enhancements published in the paper but doesn't think Meretneith is among the names in the serekhs. From the enhancements, it appears that "the seal only mentions the name of King Djer and that Meretneith is not mentioned at all," Engel told Live Science in an email.

That doesn't mean Meretneith wasn't powerful, however. Engel noted that Meretneith "had a tomb among the earlier and later kings," with inscriptions found at other sites indicating that she acted on behalf of her son, King Den, when he was too young to effectively rule.

Are you a fan of mummies and hieroglyphs? Find out with our ancient Egypt quiz!

'> A 72-year-old photo is revealing new clues about 'Meretneith,' a powerful woman who may have ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago

Emerging data suggests that genetic testing could speed the diagnosis of rare conditions, which each affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. If employed widely, such testing could help diagnose the majority of rare diseases, most of which are genetic in cause, experts told Live Science.

"Now, with the wide availability of vast, somewhat inexpensive, genetic testing and whole genome sequencing available, we're really at the point of understanding a lot more about these rare and ultra-rare diseases," said Danielle Carnival, CEO of the Undiagnosed Diseases Network Foundation (UDNF), a nonprofit supporting patients with rare and undiagnosed diseases.

"And then hopefully, that turns into the ability to treat them," she told Live Science.

Uncommon disorders, many patients

Researchers have documented more than 10,000 rare diseases and less than 5% of them have a treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. On average, 250 new rare diseases are discovered each year, Hamosh said.

Although each individual disease affects relatively few people in the population, collectively, they are not rare. In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that there are more than 30 million people living with a rare or undiagnosed disease.

"So many people know someone living undiagnosed or with a rare or ultra-rare disease, even if they don't know it," Carnival said.

About 80% of rare diseases are genetic in origin, while the other 20% are caused by environmental factors, such as a toxin exposure or viral infection, said Emily Glanton, a genetic counselor and associate director at the Undiagnosed Diseases Network Data Management Coordinating Center, a central hub for the National Institutes of Health's Undiagnosed Diseases Network.

There's a lot of overlap between rare and undiagnosed diseases, but they're not always the same. Some undiagnosed diseases can be unusual manifestations of common conditions, such as long COVID, or alternatively, they may be common conditions that doctors frequently struggle to diagnose, like endometriosis. Still, it's thought that up to 50% of people with rare diseases are undiagnosed.

"We certainly don't have a way to know [exactly] how many people have a disease that we haven't even discovered the name or cause of," Dr. Jacqueline Harris, a pediatric neurologist and director of Kennedy Krieger's Epigenetics Clinic in Baltimore, told Live Science.

Patients sometimes miss out on a diagnosis because clinicians are unable to piece together their symptoms and clearly link them to one condition. Such patients may receive multiple distinct diagnoses over time.

"A lot of times what happens with undiagnosed patients is that they end up with a little bit of a diagnosis. And I always say, it's like the umbrella is missing. We've got lots of little rain hats or visors on, and those are the diagnoses," said Kelly Kemper, whose son has an undiagnosed disease and who is a member of the UDNF patient advisory council. "But we don't have something overall that says: 'Okay, this is what it is.'"

Isolating experience

Searching for a diagnosis can be an isolating, frustrating experience.

Kemper, for instance, has spent the last five years looking for an explanation for her son's rare form of dystonia, which causes muscle spasms. He still doesn't have a diagnosis.

"We joke about this in the undiagnosed disease world: We are the only people who are consistently praying for positive test results," Kemper told Live Science.

Negative test results can be a relief, but it can be frustrating when doctors and specialists can't explain what's going on. Hearing the phrase "your labs look normal" often invalidates the symptoms a patient is experiencing, she added.

And though this process of elimination rules out conditions her son does not have, it doesn't always feel like they're getting closer to something that can be named, she said. There have been specialists who have also refused to see her son because they don't know what else to try.

"There was, like, a little bit of hope that you're gonna see the specialist and then they decline the appointment," Kemper said. "That's a hard one."

Between a multitude of doctor appointments and insurance claim denials because no diagnosis has been made, the journey has been isolating, Kemper said.

The promise of genetic testing

The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMGG) recommends genetic testing for patients with congenital anomalies — meaning birth defects — before age 1, as well as those who have any developmental delay or intellectual disability that was recognized in childhood. ACMGG recommends both exome sequencing, in which all the genes that code for proteins are examined, amounting to approximately 2% of our DNA, or whole genome sequencing, in which every letter of DNA is sequenced, as first-line genetic testing, Glanton told Live Science.

As of yet, there are no clinical guidelines surrounding exome and genome sequencing testing for people with undiagnosed and rare diseases.

To help solve some of these medical mysteries, research groups such as the Undiagnosed Diseases Network have partnered with 24 clinical centers across the country to test new diagnostic technologies.

In late 2025, the network evaluated over 3,000 patients with undiagnosed diseases and ultimately diagnosed 30% of them. Getting to answers involved several strategies: whole genome sequencing; model organisms screening, in which scientists use DNA from flies, worms and zebrafish to find gene variants that might be tied to disease; and RNA sequencing, which reveals which genes are active in different cells.

Additionally, the network also frequently utilized trio genetic testing, in which both patients and their biological parents are tested to see which gene variants they carry.

The findings suggest that at least some of these undiagnosed diseases can be diagnosed with a comprehensive suite of genetic testing.

Limits of testing

But genetic testing isn't a silver bullet. After all, the network found diagnoses for less than one-third of the patients whose cases they evaluated.

A 2025 study that looked at 400 undiagnosed patients with a range of symptoms found that exome and whole genome sequencing were likelier to help for neurological symptoms, whereas patients with a complex presentation of symptoms are likelier to go undiagnosed despite these tests. Other research suggests that exome or genome sequencing that includes family members has a better success rate than testing only the affected individual.

And crucially, diagnosis is just the first step.

"We don't want to stop at a diagnosis. We really want to build a bridge for folks to be on a pathway to get a treatment that works for them," Carnival told Live Science. That wouldn't just benefit the patients themselves, it may also provide benefits for the wider community, she added.

"So often, the answers to diseases that impact more people start with understanding these very specific mutations or environmental impacts or immune responses in very few [people]," Carnival said. "The knowledge that's generated really tells us a lot about the systems of the body and what goes wrong in even broader diseases."

Editor's Note: This article was produced as part of the Dalla Lana Fellowship in Journalism and Health Impact program at the University of Toronto.

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'> 'The right diagnosis is unbelievably powerful': It can take years to diagnose rare diseases, and scientists are trying to fix that