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.

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.

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.