Seven minutes later, Starship's huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, returned to Starbase for a dramatic catch by the launch tower's "chopstick" arms. It was the third time that SpaceX has demonstrated this jaw-dropping technique.

SpaceX has launched the eighth test flight of its Starship megarocket. The mission is designed to achieve objectives that weren’t met during a previous fiery flight.

SpaceX launched its eighth Starship flight from Texas on Thursday to test the rocket's landing abilities and deploy for its first time a batch of mock Starlink satellites, just over a month after the company's last test exploded in space.