00:00
00:00
01:10

US President-elect Donald Trump joined billionaire Elon Musk as his SpaceX company launched its giant Starship rocket to space from Texas on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

The roughly 400-foot-tall rocket system, designed to land astronauts on the moon and ferry crews to Mars, lifted off at 4:00 p.m. CT from SpaceX's rocket development site in Boca Chica, Texas.

The rocket's 233-foot-tall first stage booster, called Super Heavy, detached from its second stage, Starship, at roughly 40 miles (62 km) in altitude, sending the craft into space.

Super Heavy unexpectedly splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico instead of returning land, where it was expected to fall into large mechanical arms attached to the tower it launched from. The last-minute diversion to water indicated something went wrong.

A live stream separate from SpaceX's and hosted by space blogger Everyday Astronaut showed the Super Heavy booster exploding into a massive fireball on the Gulf horizon after splashing down. The rest of the mission appeared successful, however.

Trump's attendance signals a deepening alliance with Musk, who was named by Trump as one of the leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, after being a prominent supporter of Trump's presidential election campaign.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Musk had secretly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, in New York.

Iran denied that report, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi saying, “This (reported meeting) was a fabricated story by American media, and the motives behind this can also be speculated.”