The spacecraft Starship is ultimately intended for journeys to Mars. On Thursday evening Swedish time, Musk's company Space X had a more modest goal – to launch the spacecraft over the Gulf of Mexico and test the ability to deploy satellites.
However, just eight and a half minutes into the flight from Texas, contact was lost. Starship's engines appear to have shut down one by one, after which the entire ship exploded, according to Space X.
The landing of the spacecraft's booster rocket went better. After the launch, it was steered back to the base and could then, hovering in the air, be caught with enormous mechanical arms.
Musk, the entrepreneur seen as the world's richest person, has previously signaled that it will likely require many tests – and many failures – before the giant project Starship can potentially become a success.
This was the seventh test flight for the world's largest spacecraft. The US space agency NASA has reserved a number of rockets to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. Musk, who has now also become a close adviser to the incoming President Donald Trump, has an explicit goal of eventually using Starship for manned trips to Mars.
