"We saw the Starship 8 breakup in the upper atmosphere and fall back to earth from the ISS," said Pettit, known for his photography from the lofty perch. Starship, a 400-foot-tall

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.

Nearly two months after an explosion sent flaming debris raining down on the Turks and Caicos, SpaceX launched another mammoth Starship rocket on Thursday, but lost contact minutes into the test flight as the spacecraft came tumbling down and broke apart.