The company notched another successful booster catch but lost contact with the Starship spacecraft at roughly the same point it did during Flight 7 in January.

Nearly two months after an explosion sent flaming debris raining down on the Turks and Caicos, SpaceX launched another mammoth Starship rocket on Thursday, but lost contact minutes into the test flight as the spacecraft came tumbling down and broke apart.

“After completing the required and comprehensive safety review, the FAA determined the SpaceX Starship vehicle can return to flight operations while the investigation into the Jan. 16 Starship Flight 7 mishap remains open,” the FAA stated. “The FAA is overseeing the SpaceX-led investigation.”

Things were looking good when the SpaceX Super Heavy thundered off the launchpad perched on the lip of the South Texas Coast on Thursday evening – right up until they weren’t, that is. After having to scrub the previously scheduled launch on Monday — CEO Elon Musk said there

SpaceX’s Starship is undergoing a series of test flights to prepare for deep-space missions. With eight flights now completed, find out how each test has unfolded.

For a company that prides itself on pushing the boundaries in space exploration, SpaceX just hit another major roadblock—literally. The highly anticipated test flight of its Starship mega rocket ended in disaster (again) after controllers lost contact with the upper-stage vehicle just minutes into the launch.

Well, here we are again, folks. The eighth test flight for SpaceX’s Starship ended in a spectacular explosion yesterday evening (March 6), less than two months after the last test flight for the largest rocket ever created met a similarly fiery fate.