Elon Musk's Starship rocket reportedly exploded just minutes into its seventh test flight in a dramatic mid-air failure.
Stunning footage showed glowing debris raining across the sky after the giant 400-foot craft was launched from Boca Chica, South Texas, on Thursday.
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The spacecraft was supposed to fly across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas in a close loop, similar to previous test flights.
SpaceX packed it with 10 dummy satellites for launch practice.
This was the first flight of this new and updated spacecraft.
But while the booster performed flawlessly — returning successfully and being pinned between two giant mechanical arms at the launch pad — the rocket itself was gone.
The joy of the hunt quickly turned into a disappointment not only for the company but for the crowds gathered along the southern tip of Texas.
The crew lost contact with the spacecraft, the largest and most powerful rocket in the world.
The company's livestream host confirmed the worst: “At this time, we can confirm that we have lost ship.
“It appears we lost contact less than eight and a half minutes into the flight.”
Confirming the explosion, SpaceX wrote on X: “The spacecraft experienced a rapid, unscheduled disassembly as it burned during ascent.
“Teams will continue to review data from today’s flight testing to better understand the root cause.”
As the missile disintegrated in the sky, glowing debris rained down, forcing nearby air traffic to change course.
The planes were moving away from the area where debris was scattered in the atmosphere.
The latest data from Starship indicates that the rocket reached an altitude of 90 miles and a speed of 13,245 miles per hour, before losing contact.
“It was great to see the rocket land, but we're obviously concerned about the ship,” SpaceX spokesman Dan Huett said.
He added that it will take some time to analyze the data and determine what went wrong.
Elon Musk's space company had hoped that this test flight would represent a step forward in its goal of building a fully reusable spacecraft capable of transporting humans to Mars.
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He plans to launch actual Starlinks on Starships before moving on to other satellites and, eventually, to crews.
“Every Starship launch is another step towards Mars,” the same technology chief tweeted before liftoff.
The Starship prototype has been significantly modified since its last test flight in November 2023.
SpaceX also made upgrades to the booster “capture” tower, which was damaged during previous testing.
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