Starship, a massive new rocket from Elon Musk's SpaceX firm, exploded during its first flight.
The uncrewed test, which took off on Thursday morning local time from Texas' east coast, did not result in any injuries.
The largest rocket ever created began to lose control two to three minutes into the flight and was quickly destroyed by onboard charges.
In a few months, Mr. Musk has promised, his business would try again.
Engineers with SpaceX continue to consider Thursday's flight a success. They enjoy "testing early and often" and have no problem breaking stuff. A significant amount of data will have been acquired to prepare for the upcoming flight. Another Starship is almost prepared to take off.
"Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months," Mr Musk tweeted.
An accident inquiry will be supervised, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which issues licenses for rocket launches in the US. According to a spokeswoman, when a vehicle was lost in flight, this was usual procedure.
Prior to the debut, the entrepreneur tried to manage expectations. He declared that "a win" would be defined as just getting the vehicle off the ground without wrecking the launch pad infrastructure.
His request was fulfilled. Starship accelerated as it left its launch pad near the US-Mexico border and headed into the Gulf of Mexico. But after about a minute, it became clear that things were not proceeding as planned.
Six of the 33 engines at the rocket's base were either cut off or flamed out as it rose higher and higher into the sky.
And within three minutes, it was very clear that the flight was coming to an end. The two halves of the car were still attached when they should have been apart, deviating from their intended path.
A massive explosion tore across the clear sky at launch plus four minutes while Starship was losing altitude as a result of computers activating the vehicle's Flight Termination System (FTS).
"With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today that will help us improve on future flights of Starship," SpaceX said in a statement.
Starship's top portion, often known as the ship, has previously flown on quick hops, but this was the first time it had also launched with its lower-stage vehicle.
In February, this enormous launcher, known only as Super Heavy, was launched while still attached to its launch mount. On that particular occasion, though, its cluster of engines had only half of their normal power.
The stage should have produced close to 70 meganewtons on Thursday if SpaceX followed through on its commitment to aim for 90% thrust.
That is twice as much thrust as the Saturn V rocket, which is famed for launching men to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s.
Starship may not have completely destroyed its launch pad, but later images showed that the abrupt departure had seriously damaged certain concrete surfaces.
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