Astronauts orbiting 250 miles above Earth got a front-row seat to destruction on Thursday. During a SpaceX flight test of Starship, the world's most powerful rocket and spacecraft system, NASA 's Don Pettit snapped photos from the International Space Station of the ship blowing up.

After SpaceX’s Starship rocket exploded during a test flight in January, the company had hoped its nect launch attempt would go better. But again, controllers lost contact with the upper-stage vehicle.

X has run into serious issues trying to get a prototype upper stage of its Starship to launch into orbit, then make a soft landing.