The 122m-tall rocket system, designed to land astronauts on the moon and ferry crews to Mars, lifted off at 4pm local time midnight SAST from SpaceXs sprawling rocket development site in Boca Chica, Texas.
The rockets 71m-tall first-stage booster, called Super Heavy, detached from its second stage, Starship, at roughly 62km in altitude, sending the craft into space.
Super Heavy unexpectedly splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico instead of returning to land, where it was expected to fall into large mechanical arms attached to the tower it launched from. The last-minute diversion to water indicated something went wrong.
A live stream separate from SpaceXs and hosted by space blogger Everyday Astronaut showed the Super Heavy booster exploding into a massive fireball on the Gulf horizon after splashing down.
Starship last month demonstrated the novel catch-landing method for the first time, achieving a key milestone in its reusable design. Tuesdays catch-landing was supposed to be faster/harder, Musk had written on social media before the launch.
