SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (AP) — SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off on its first test flight Thursday and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Elon Musk’s company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It carried no people or satellites.

Images showed several of the 33 main engines were not firing as the rocket climbed from the launch pad, reaching as high as 24 miles (39 kilometers). There was no immediate word from SpaceX on how many engines failed to ignite or shut down prematurely.

The booster was supposed to peel away from the spacecraft three minutes after liftoff, but that didn’t happen. The rocket with the spacecraft still attached began to tumble and then exploded, plummeting into the gulf.

Once flying free, the spacecraft was meant to lap around the world, ending with a crash-landing in the Pacific near Hawaii.

Instead of a best-case-scenario 1 1/2-hour flight, it lasted four minutes.

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