The "rapid unscheduled disassembly" was likely caused by a propellant leak, Elon Musk said, and was captured on video by spectators on the ground.

The Super Heavy booster, meanwhile, was successfully caught in the launch tower's mechanical arms for only the second time

SpaceX confirmed the upper stage had undergone "rapid unscheduled disassembly," the company's euphemism for an explosion.

The rocket company said the space vehicle came apart during its ascent. Videos posted to social media showed debris streaking through the sky.

Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, pulled off a daring booster catch on its most ambitious test flight yet, but the spacecraft was lost. Follow for the latest news.

The 171-foot-tall (52 meters) spacecraft exploded over the Atlantic Ocean near the Turks and Caicos islands around 8.5 minutes after launch, creating a spectacular sky show witnessed by many people in the area. And a fair few of these folks posted their photos and videos on X, the social media site owned by SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.

SpaceX launched Starship on Thursday for a seventh test flight, after weather concerns pushed back an experiment that will feature the spacecraft’s first payload deployment test, and while it successfully caught the Super Heavy Booster, Starship lost connection and “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

The uncrewed Starship spacecraft was apparently destroyed during its first flight launch of 2025 that blasted off from south Texas.

After SpaceX’s Starship exploded over Turks and Caicos on Thursday, the FAA launched an investigation, demanding answers into the mishap.

The United States on Friday grounded SpaceX's Starship and ordered Elon Musk's company to investigate why the spaceship spectacularly disintegrated in a fiery cascade over the Caribbean during its

The FAA has grounded SpaceX's Starship pending an investigation into why the rocket's upper stage dramatically disintegrated in its latest flight.