Elon Musk's latest Starship test flight ends with another explosion, sending debris flying over Florida. No casualties have been reported.
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SpaceX lost contact with another rocket on Thursday. The spaceship exploded into the sky and debris fell to the ground in Florida, USA. No casualties have been reported.
The explosion of the mammoth Starship comes nearly two months after an explosion sent flaming debris raining down on the Turks and Caicos. It was not immediately known whether the spacecraft's self-destruct system had kicked in to blow it up.
In a statement, SpaceX said: "During Starship's ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost."
The 123 metre rocket blasted off from Texas on Thursday evening local time. SpaceX caught the first-stage booster back at the pad with giant mechanical arms, but engines on the spacecraft on top started shutting down as it streaked eastward for what was supposed to be a controlled entry over the Indian Ocean, half a world away.
Contact was lost as the spacecraft went into an out-of-control spin. A social media user in the Bahamas caught footage of what may have been the wreckage Starship rocket gliding across the region's sky.
Starship reached nearly 140 km in altitude before trouble struck and before four mock satellites could be deployed. It was not immediately clear where it came down, but images of flaming debris were captured from Florida, including near Cape Canaveral, and posted online.
The space-skimming flight was supposed to last an hour. NASA has booked Starship to land its astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX’s Elon Musk is aiming for Mars with Starship, the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.
