Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship rocket, believed to the be the largest ever built, blew up just minutes after taking off today.
It is hoped that successful flights of the 120-metre rocket could be the first steps in a human journey to Mars.
The rocket exploded four minutes after setting off at South Padre Island in Texas, at 2:33pm UK time, on April 20. It is believed that two parts of the rocket failed to separate.
Waiting crowds cheered alongside SpaceX staff despite the explosion.
SpaceX warned before take off that the main aim of the mission was to gather information and the chances of a successful flight were low.
SpaceX posted on Twitter afterwards and said: “As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation.”
Elon Musk also posted on the platform, saying: "Congrats SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship!
"Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months."
SpaceX have previously gone on record as saying that test flights exploding is not always a bad thing and they still learn a lot from the missions.
They already have more Starship rockets in production for future tests, and it is all to meet Musk's goal of making humans an interplanetary species and one day to colonise Mars.
SpaceX say one day the Starship will be able to transport dozens of people at a time to Mars, and have 11 people scheduled to travel to the moon on the rocket later this year.
The company also say they have a longer term plan to use Starship for travel on Earth, with trips from London to Tokyo in under one hour.
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