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.

"Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity."

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

"Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn. Teams will continue to review data from today's flight test to better understand root cause. With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability," it read.

SpaceX is set to launch the seventh test flight of its Starship megarocket on Thursday (Jan. 16), and you can watch the action live. The 400-foot-tall (122 meters) Starship is scheduled to lift off from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas Thursday at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT; 4 p.m. local Texas time).

Before the loss, SpaceX for the second time used giant mechanical arms to catch the booster back at the pad minutes after liftoff from Texas. The descending booster hovered over the launch pad ...

SpaceX pulled off its “chopsticks” catch of a Super Heavy rocket booster but lost the Starship spacecraft on Thursday during the vehicle’s seventh uncrewed test flight.

SpaceX Starship explode over Atlantic Ocean on Flight Test 7 January 16, 2025. Starship Flight Test 7. Starbase, South Texas. 403 feet tall. LIFTOFF! The first stage, Super Heavy, returned to the ...

Some Hawaiians don’t like the idea of SpaceX dropping Starship rockets in the Pacific Ocean surrounding the islands.

SpaceX Starship 25 and Super Heavy booster 9 launched to orbit from the Starbase facility in South Texas. Following the launch, the booster experienced a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly (RUD). Credit: Spa

The goal of the mission was to attempt a second booster landing as well as the deployment of mock-up satellites.