This was Starship’s eighth flight test and follows a failed flight in January. The spacecraft is essential to Elon Musk’s vision of eventually colonizing Mars.

SpaceX's eighth flight test of its Starship spacecraft ended with a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," the company said. Contact with the ship was lost about nine minutes after the launch.

Crew-9 launched with Hague and Gorbunov and two empty seats for Williams and Wilmore on the return journey, aboard SpaceX's ...