In a key test flight on Friday, SpaceX tried but failed to recover both stages of its massive Starship rocket.
The rocket lifted off from the company's South Texas launch facility at 4:47 p.m. local time, or 5:47 p.m. ET. SpaceX had to abort its plans to catch and reuse the booster, instead diverting it to splash into the Gulf of Mexico, where it burst into flames.
Test Flight 15, the most ambitious Starship mission to date, was the first time Elon Musk's company attempted to catch both the booster and upper stage, or spacecraft portion, of the massive rocket.
Earlier on Friday, SpaceX obtained authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration. Hours later, the FAA issued a nationwide ground stop after reporting communication problems affecting "multiple" air traffic control centers. The SpaceX license wasn't effected by the flight stoppage, a spokesperson for the FAA told CNBC.
The upper stage of the Starship continued its trajectory into orbit after the company failed to catch and salvage the booster. The rocket is expected to fly around the Earth fourteen times in total. If successful, SpaceX will land the upper stage back at its Starbase facility on Saturday.