WATCH | Moment when SpaceX's Starship rocket exploded after liftoff

Space X's Starship, the world's biggest rocket, exploded during its first test flight on Thursday (April 20). The rocket exploded just minutes after launching from the Gulf Coast Starbase facility in south Texas. According to a report by the news agency Reuters, webcast viewers were awaiting the expected upper-stage Starship's separation from the lower-stage Super Heavy rocket when the combined vehicle began flipping end over end. The explosion followed moments later, leaving a trail of smoke and falling debris.

Reuters tweeted a video of the explosion. The rocket reached a peak altitude of nearly 32 kilometres before the explosion.

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The fiery disintegration of the rocket was also captured on a live event on Facebook.

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Despite the failure of the test flight, SpaceX declared it a success with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk congratulating his team on an "exciting" test of the next-generation spacecraft designed to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

"Congrats SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months," Musk tweeted. Ahead of the test flight, Musk had warned that technical issues were likely and sought to play down expectations for the inaugural flight.

SpaceX, meanwhile, said in a statement, "With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today that will help us improve on future flights of Starship."

Starship consists of a 164-foot (50-meter) tall crew vehicle that sits atop a 230-foot tall first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket. In February, SpaceX had conducted a successful test firing of the 33 massive Raptor engines on the booster in Starshipspacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket was being flown together for the first time, the news agency AFP reported.

The launch was scheduled for Monday but was postponed to Thursday due to a frozen pressure valve on the first-stage booster.

(With inputs from agencies)

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