It was only at 5:58 p.m., roughly 13 minutes after the spacecraft reportedly exploded — that controllers in Puerto Rico declared a "space vehicle mishap" and closed the airspace around the incident.

Liftoff happened just after 7:35 p.m. ET from SpaceX's Starbase headquarters in Boca Chica, Texas. Starship managed to reach its scheduled ship engine cutoff before disassembling, according to an ...