SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy booster experienced another explosion during a test flight on Tuesday, marking the third consecutive failure in its recent launch attempts.

The launch vehicle—comprising the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage—stands approximately 400 feet tall when fully stacked, making it the tallest rocket system ever built.

SpaceX has been developing the Starship system as a fully reusable rocket for missions ranging from Earth orbit transport to lunar exploration—and ultimately, colonization of Mars, a key ambition of Elon Musk.

During Tuesday’s test flight, livestreamed on the SpaceX website and social media platforms, the Super Heavy first-stage booster exploded shortly after stage separation. The second-stage Starship vehicle then suffered a significant fuel leak, lost stability during reentry, and ultimately disintegrated in a fiery explosion.

Despite the failure, each test provides critical data for refining the system. SpaceX continues to pursue rapid iteration as part of its development strategy, aiming to achieve full reusability and long-duration deep-space capability.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged the incident in a statement on Tuesday, confirming it is “aware an anomaly occurred during the SpaceX Starship Flight 9 mission that launched on Tuesday, May 27, from Starbase, Texas.”

The agency added that it is actively working with SpaceX to investigate the event.

Importantly, the FAA noted that there were “no reports of public injury or damage to public property at this time.”

As with previous test flights, SpaceX will likely need FAA approval before proceeding with another launch.

Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, wrote on X that, “Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Also no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent.”

The CEO of SpaceX added that “leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase” of the rocket.

Musk promised that SpaceX will speed up Starship test flights, targeting a launch roughly every three to four weeks.

SpaceX was previously limited to five Starship launches per year from its Texas spaceport but received FAA approval earlier this month to increase its launch frequency.

“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary,” the company wrote in a post on X.

SpaceX did not respond to requests for more information on Tuesday after describing the test flight failure as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”