Starship’s seventh test flight ended in an explosion when the vehicle’s upper stage “experienced a rapid unscheduled disintegration during its ascent” over the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX chief Elon Musk posted a video of the event, with debris flying across and lighting up the sky. During the company’s webcast, Dan Huot from SpaceX’s communications team SAYS “They saw the engines drop on the telemetry” at the end of the burn climb and that they eventually lost contact with the Ship, which is what the company calls the upper stage vehicle. SpaceX said in a tweet that it will continue to review data from the test to understand the cause of the explosion.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a COUNSEL for the pilots after the incident, warning them about falling debris in some places. SpaceX said before the test that it intended to “launch a new generation ship with significant upgrades” and should conduct the first test of the delivery of Starship cargo with the help of 10 Starlink simulators.

Despite burning the upper stage of the Starship, the test was a partial success. The Ship’s Raptor engines exploded during the climb burn before the ground team lost contact with it about 8 minutes into the flight. SpaceX also acquired the Super Heavy booster, which captured the vehicle’s first stage using mechanical arms on its Starbase launch tower.