A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launching from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to alter course to avoid falling debris and setting back Elon Musk's flagship rocket program.

Evasive Maneuvers While it may have provided an eye-popping spectacle for spectators on the ground, the mid-flight explosion of SpaceX's Starship on Thursday evening posed a serious threat to nearby aircraft.

The US has grounded SpaceX's giant Starship rocket while an investigation is carried out into why it exploded during its latest test flight. The rocket's upper stage dramatically broke up and disintegrated over the Caribbean after launching from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights to alter course to avoid falling debris.

The seventh test of SpaceX's huge Starship rocket was nothing short of exhilarating, with a fiery explosion and a successful booster catch.

Dramatic footage showing streaks of light zipping across the sky surfaced online following Elon Musk's Starship explosion over the Atlantic Ocean.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made light of Starship's fiery end. "Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!" he said on X.

The "rapid unscheduled disassembly" was likely caused by a propellant leak, Elon Musk said, and was captured on video by spectators on the ground.

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,

Elon Musk‘s SpaceX Starship prototype exploded in the air, merely minutes after taking off for his seventh test flight, disrupting air traffic and forcing “at least” 20 commercial flights to alter course in order to avoid fallen debris from the destroyed rocket.

The rocket company said the space vehicle came apart during its ascent. Videos posted to social media showed debris streaking through the sky.

The mission on Thursday was SpaceX's seventh Starship test since 2023, part of Musk's multibillion-dollar effort to build a rocket capable of ferrying humans and cargo to Mars, as well as deploying large batches of satellites into Earth's orbit.