Starship, Elon Musk’s space rocket, exploded shortly after launch in Texas on Thursday.
The Starship rocket’s booster attempted to separate, at which point its systems failed and Musk’s company SpaceX was forced to blow up the rocket, which was uncrewed.
“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,” SpaceX said in a statement.
Billionaire entrepreneur Musk had said that anything that got off the launchpad would be considered a win. The rocket is being tested with the aim of one day being used to shuttle passengers to Mars.
“Congrats SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship!” Musk tweeted. “Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months.”
Starship’s original launch date Monday was delayed after a frozen valve caused issues with the booster.
