And then they went really wrong as the monster-sized SpaceX spacecraft exploded and broke apart, raining down in what looked like a colorful meteor shower over the Turks and Caicos islands, which is southeast of Florida.

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.

The unmanned Starship rocket was apparently destroyed during its first flight launch of 2025 that blasted off from south Texas.