SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took to X on Thursday night to explain what his company believes may have caused part of the Starship rocket to experience a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described the explosion of the company’s Starship spacecraft during its seventh flight test Thursday as “barely a bump in the road,” underlining the momentum behind the commercial space giant.

A SpaceX Starship prototype failed shortly after launching from Texas on Thursday, losing contact eight minutes after liftoff. The rocket, carrying mock satellites, exploded in space.

SpaceX, the private space technology company owned by Elon Musk, is asking federal authorities to approve a new round of tests for a prototype reusable rocket, but some of them may never make it back to the surface intact and will crash in the ocean.

An American tourist who was visiting Turks and Caicos was left shocked when he caught the explosion of SpaceX's Starship rocket on camera while relaxing on a beach

SpaceX's Starship was destroyed during its seventh test flight on Thursday night, with the rocket breaking apart less than 10 minutes after blasting off

A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up just minutes after launching in Texas, forcing flights over the Gulf of Mexico to change course to dodge falling debris and setting back Elon Musk’s flagship rocket programme.

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 SpaceX Starship - developed by Elon Musk's aerospace company SpaceX - blasted off from Texas on Thursday for its seventh test flight, but it encountered difficulties

Elon Musk attempted to do his best Maximus Decimus Meridius impression in response to yesterday's SpaceX starship explosion. Yesterday marked a test launch of Musk's 403-foot-tall rocket in South Texas.