Elon Musk’s SpaceX successfully launched its Starship spacecraft into Earth’s orbit, but an unspecified problem forced it to abort the booster recovery.

The 124 metre Starship roared into the sky from Starbase in southern Texas for its 15th test flight. It was the company’s boldest test yet, as it attempted for the first time to recover both stages of the giant rocket at the launch site.

After lift off and the mid air separation of the two stages, an issue with the Super Heavy booster forced SpaceX to divert it to an offshore splashdown.

The move scuttled what would have been a groundbreaking twin capture of both components of the rocket.

A fireball erupted as the booster fell into the Gulf of Mexico near the launch site, with a section sticking out vertically afterward. SpaceX did not immediately explain what went wrong.

Not sure right now why we weren’t able to bring it back, SpaceX’s Dan Huot said during the live broadcast.

Meanwhile, the Starship spacecraft that gives the rocket system its name entered Earth’s orbit, where it was expected to circle the globe 14 times before returning Saturday.

Shortly after reaching orbit, Starship dropped off 26 of the company’s most advanced Starlink satellites.

Successful recoveries of both Starship and its booster would have marked a milestone in the space industry’s decades long pursuit of fully reusable rocket systems that can drastically reduce mission costs and make frequent launches possible.

Clayton Swope, an aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called the mission a mixed bag so far after the failure to catch the Super Heavy, something SpaceX has done three times previously.

SpaceX plans to return Starship to Earth after more than 22 hours of flight and recover it at around 3:20 pm on Saturday at the launch site.

The catch is extremely complex because the spaceship will be falling much faster and from a much higher altitude than the booster, and must withstand the extreme heat of reentering the atmosphere.

US space agency NASA is counting on Starship to serve as a lunar lander on its Artemis mission.