If the weather cooperates, the Starship launch will follow the maiden flight of Jeff Bezos' already weather-delayed New Glenn rocket.

SpaceX is ready to send up its first test flight of the year for its Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Texas, but delayed it one day to Thursday, when the company will once again go for a booster catch back at the launch site.

The upper stage of SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded minutes after launch from Texas on Thursday, leading the aerospace company to declare the vessel a "loss" in the seventh test flight of the heavy-lift spacecraft.

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

SpaceX launched its Starship mega-rocket for the seventh time. It achieve an epic booster catch but the ship was lost.

SpaceX launched its Starship rocket on its latest test flight Thursday, but the spacecraft was destroyed following a thrilling booster catch back at the pad. Elon Musk’s company said Starship broke apart — what it called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.

The last time a Starship upper stage failed was in March last year, as it was reentering Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but rarely has a SpaceX mishap caused widespread disruptions to air traffic.

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,