Elon Musk’s SpaceX lost its 400-foot-tall Starship in space where it was destroyed after launching the rocket from Texas Thursday in its seventh test flight. 

The engines of the new and improved spacecraft went out during its ascent and the SpaceX team lost contact with the uncrewed craft, the company said. 

The launch however was not without some success. Before the ship loss, the company successfully demonstrated how its massive mechanical arms dubbed “chopsticks” caught the rocket booster at the launch pad for the second time ever. 

The “chopsticks” first and only other successful catch-and-return maneuver was demonstrated during an Oct. 13 launch. 

Before it imploded, the Starship was supposed to zoom across the Gulf of Mexico and release 10 dummy satellites as practice before it would self-destruct in the Indian Ocean.

Instead, SpaceX crews lost contact with the spacecraft only about 8-and-a-half minutes into its mission.

First night in Turks and Caicos and we’re on the beach and see this.

👀 pic.twitter.com/CDPlLd70Yn

— KingDomRedux (@KingDomRedux) January 16, 2025

Glistening fragments of the Starship were seen shooting across the sky near the Turks and Caicos islands. 

Musk’s ultimate goal is to use the Starship to send people to Mars. After enough testing, he plans to send out actual Starlinks satellites on the aircraft before advancing to other satellites and eventually people. 

“Every Starship launch is one more step closer towards Mars,” Musk said on X ahead of liftoff.

NASA, meanwhile, has reserved a pair of Starships to send astronauts to the moon in the coming years. 

Earlier the same day, another billionaire Jeff Bezos launched his own rocket company Blue Origin’s newest supersized rocket called New Glenn. The rocket reached orbit and deposited a satellite thousands of miles above Earth but was destroyed during landing.