SpaceX Starship explodes preparing for 10th test flight

• "Just a scratch," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X Thursday, in apparent reference to the explosion.

Zoom in: The company called the explosion a "major anomaly," and local authorities said it was a "catastrophic failure" during a routine static fire test.

• SpaceX said no hazards remained for residents in the surrounding communities.

Context: Starship's seventh, eighth and ninth test flights failed in separate incidents earlier this year.

• "We are trying to do something that is impossibly hard," Dan Huot, a SpaceX spokeperson, said during a webcast after a May explosion.
• "You're not going to reach it in a it in a straight line," he added. "We've said there's going to be bumps, there's going to be turns."

State of play: The Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, collectively referred to as Starship, is designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth's orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond.

• SpaceX calls Starship "the world's most powerful launch vehicle ever developed." It's "capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable," per the company.
• Eventually, the company hopes it will be able to carry up to 100 people on long-duration, interplanetary flights.

Flashback: Last year, Starship successfully made its first controlled water landing during its fourth flight test.

Go deeper: Trump-Musk split exposes how reliant NASA has become on SpaceX