Elon Musk's Starship prototype makes a big impact

US entrepreneur Elon Musk has launched the latest prototype of his Starship vehicle from Texas.

Codenamed SN8, the uncrewed rocket lifted away from the Boca Chica R&D facility on what had been billed as a brief flight to 12.5km (41,000ft), reports BBC.

The 50m-tall vehicle crashed on touchdown but Mr Musk was delighted with how much the test outing achieved.

Before the flight, the tech billionaire had dampened expectations, warning his fans that some mishap was likely.

Nonetheless, Musk has big hopes for the Starship when it is fully developed. He says it is the future for his SpaceX company.

Starship will launch people and cargo into orbit, and the entrepreneur also envisages the vehicle travelling to the Moon and Mars.

The SpaceX CEO praised his team, adding that the demonstration had acquired "all the data we needed".

"Mars, here we come!!" he tweeted.

The Boca Chica facility has developed a line of ever-more complex prototypes. The philosophy has been to test each iteration until it fails. Sometimes explosively.

SN8 was the first to attempt a high-altitude suborbital flight.

The plan had been to test out some manoeuvres that mimicked a belly-facing re-entry to Earth's atmosphere, ending up with a flip back to the vertical just before touchdown.

Most of this was achieved: a clean launch off the pad, a steady climb to altitude, followed by a horizontal descent. But it was when the Starship tried to flip back to the vertical that things started to go wrong.

The vehicle came into its landing pad with too much speed, and promptly exploded on impact.

"Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD," Mr Musk explained on Twitter.

"RUD" stands for "rapid unscheduled disassembly". A crash, in other words.

Mr Musk will move swiftly on. He already has other prototypes at Boca Chica ready to take SN8's place.