
SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket was “lost” just minutes into its seventh test flight on Thursday, reported Sky News.
The 400-foot rocket, the largest and most powerful in the world, launched from Boca Chica, South Texas, on Thursday at approximately 4:40 p.m. local time.
Shortly after liftoff, the rocket's booster successfully returned to Earth as planned and was caught by two enormous mechanical arms, drawing cheers from the crowd.
However, SpaceX soon announced it had lost contact with the Starship spacecraft, potentially due to an in-space failure.
A host on SpaceX’s livestream later confirmed, “At this point in time, we can confirm we did lose the ship. It looks like we lost contact a little under eight and a half minutes into the flight.”
Thursday’s flight marked the seventh test of the newly upgraded Starship, a key step in SpaceX owner Elon Musk’s vision to develop the first fully reusable spacecraft capable of transporting humans to Mars.
Since its sixth test flight in November, the Starship had undergone significant upgrades and was slated to deploy dummy satellites into space for the first time.
US President-elect Donald Trump joined Musk to watch the sixth test flight in November. The test took place days after Musk was named by Trump as one of the leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.