SpaceX rocket fails in 'another exciting test'

SPACEX ENGINEER JOHN INSPRUCKER: "We've just passed through one kilometer altitude. Getting ready for the relay."

A frozen webcast was the first sign a SpaceX flight test did not go as planned on Tuesday.

The second sign was the audio that followed.

And the subsequent commentary did not bode well for a successful landing either.

INSPRUCKER: "We're back with you. As you can see from the frozen camera view, we lost the clock at T-plus five minutes forty nine seconds. Looks like we've had another 'exciting test' of Starship Number 11... The frozen view we saw in the camera doesn't mean that we are waiting for the signal to come back. Starship 11 is not coming back. Don't wait for the landing."

SpaceX engineers said they were investigating why the unmanned Starship prototype rocket appeared to explode on its way back down to Earth, after a test launch from Boca Chica, Texas.

INSPRUCKER: "We do appear to have lost all the data from the vehicle."

Debris from the spacecraft was found scattered five miles away from its landing site.

Later, billionaire Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, said on Twitter: "Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today."

The Starship was one in a series of prototypes for the heavy-lift rocket being developed by Musk's private space company to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.

Other Starship prototypes previously exploded upon landing during their test runs. Starship Number 10 achieved an upright landing earlier this month, but then went up in flames about eight minutes after touchdown.