Elon Musk’s Mars rocket program recorded another setback on Thursday as SpaceX’s Starship exploded soon after take off.
The 400-foot Starship, powered by 33 Raptor engines, took off at 6:30 p.m. ET from SpaceX’s launchpad at its Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas.
The ship started to spin out of control about nine minutes into the air as its engines flamed out, and mission control lost contact.
SpaceX stopped the video feed of the launch, and explained that the mega rocket “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
In a post on X, the company said the data from the flight test will be reviewed to better understand the root cause.
“As always, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship’s reliability,” the post added.
Thursday’s incident was the second consecutive failed launch, occurring weeks after an explosion dispersed pieces of a Starship vehicle into the Atlantic.