SpaceX's Starship explodes again, marking the second setback for Musk's Mars program.

Back-to-back failures suggest significant setbacks for the mission to launch satellites and transport humans to the moon and Mars.

Elon Musk's Mars rocket program suffered its second consecutive failure this year when SpaceX's Starship spaceship burst minutes after liftoff from Texas on Thursday.

Several videos on social media showed blazing debris streaking across the dusk sky near South Florida and the Bahamas following Starship's disintegration in space, which happened immediately after it began spinning wildly with its engines turned off, according to a SpaceX webcast of the flight.

The failure occurred just over a month after the company's seventh Starship flight, which also failed due to an explosion.  The back-to-back disasters occurred during early mission phases that SpaceX had previously easily surpassed, signifying significant hurdles for a program Musk had hoped to accelerate this year.

The 403-foot (123-meter) rocket system lifted from SpaceX's massive Boca Chica, Texas, rocket facility at approximately 6.30 pm ET (2300 GMT), with its Super Heavy first-stage booster returning to land as scheduled.

However, minutes later, SpaceX's live stream showed the Starship's upper stage spinning in orbit; simultaneously, a simulation of the rocket's engines revealed many engines shutting down before the company acknowledged it had lost contact with the spacecraft.

"Unfortunately, this happened last time, too, so we've had some practice," said SpaceX spokeswoman Dan Huot during the video.

The rocket was not carrying any astronauts.  SpaceX terminated the broadcast shortly after the launch and did not indicate where debris would fall.

SpaceX stated on its website that "the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost."  The business said that its team was collaborating with safety inspectors and would study flight data to determine the underlying cause of the explosion, adding that "Success comes from what we learn, and today's flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship's reliability."

As debris scattered across the Caribbean, the Federal Aviation Administration briefly grounded commercial flights at Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, and Orlando airports due to "space launch debris" until at least 8 p.m. ET.  Flights were also diverted near the Turks and Caicos.

The FAA said it had initiated a mishap investigation into the incident and that SpaceX would need to examine the reason for the accident and obtain the agency's approval before Starship could fly again.

The failure of Starship's maiden launch attempt since exploding in space on January 16 strikes a dent in Musk's development plans.  He intends to create a rocket capable of launching more significant numbers of satellites into orbit and humans to the moon and Mars.

The Starship catastrophe in January ended eight minutes into launch when the rocket detonated in space, dumping debris over the Caribbean Islands.  The explosion was triggered by a fire that started near the ship's liquid oxygen tank.  At the time, the FAA temporarily grounded commercial flights and directed SpaceX to investigate.  SpaceX stated that it has since improved the fuel lines and temperature.