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.”

Check back for live FLORIDA TODAY Space Team launch updates on this page, starting about 90 minutes before today’s launch window opens.

SpaceX is targeting a 4½-hour launch window for another Starlink mission from 2:21 p.m. to 6:52 p.m., an FAA operations plan advisory shows.

The 171-foot-tall (52 meters) spacecraft exploded over the Atlantic Ocean near the Turks and Caicos islands around 8.5 minutes after launch, creating a spectacular sky show witnessed by many people in the area. And a fair few of these folks posted their photos and videos on X, the social media site owned by SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.

SpaceX’s colossal Starship launch system lifted off on its ... the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “Teams will continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause. With a test like this, success comes ...

After the successful booster recovery, SpaceX officials reported losing contact with the spaceship toward the end of the ascend.

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.

SpaceX called the event a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," a tongue-in-cheek term denoting a rocket explosion, "during its ascent burn," in a statement posted to X-formerly-Twitter. "Teams will continue to review data from today's flight test to better ...

"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."

Elon Musk took to X to state President Trump has asked for the quick return of two NASA astronauts who flew to space in June.

The Trump administration offered an ultimatum to some federal employees asking them to choose if they want to resign in a pitch that echoes Elon Musk's moves at Twitter.

The billionaire and his Silicon Valley associates landed in the capital and immediately moved to cut the size of the federal government, reprising the playbook he used after buying Twitter in 2022.