SpaceX Starship explodes

SpaceX conducted its seventh test flight of the Starship rocket on Thursday, but the spacecraft was destroyed after the booster attempted to land back at the launch pad.

SpaceX reported that its Starship rocket experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" during its seventh test flight. The rocket successfully lifted off from the Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas, but eight and a half minutes into the mission, ground control lost all communication with the spacecraft.

Following the incident of SpaceX's Starship during its seventh test flight, flights near the Turks and Caicos Islands were observed diverting to avoid debris from the incident. Footage shared online captured fragments falling from the sky in the area.

One minute before communication with Starship was lost, SpaceX successfully used the launch tower's giant mechanical arms to catch the returning booster—a challenging maneuver that had only been achieved once before. The super-heavy first-stage booster descended over the launch pad and was precisely gripped by the pair of robotic arms.

The test flight mission did not carry any astronauts. The last data received from the spacecraft indicated it had reached an altitude of 146 kilometers and was traveling at a velocity of 13,245 km/h before communication was lost.