Elon Musk’s SpaceX starship explodes during test flight

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the world’s most powerful rocket, its 500-foot-tall Starship, on a historic test flight Thursday morning — only for it to explode mid-air just minutes later.

The giant rocket lifted off from the launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas a few minutes after Thursday’s launch window opened at 8:28 a.m. local time (9:28 a.m. ET).

The rocket, which is poised to take astronauts to the moon as early as 2025, did not reach orbit, but the test run drew cheers from the control center after the ship climbed to dozens of miles in the atmosphere.

No one was on board the rocket during the doomed launch.

The lift off of Elon Musk’s pet project came after a frozen valve in the mega-rocket postponed a Monday test launch.

Launching the rocket into space for the first time would be a major step towards SpaceX’s goal of sending humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars.

This is a developing story.