Space X rocket 'destroyed' less than ten minutes after its launch in Elon Musk's mission to reach Mars

There's a well known saying which goes: 'the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results', which seems to be the case when it comes to Elon Musk's obsession with Mars.

The tech-billionaire has made no secret of his plans to colonise the nearby red planet, with the Tesla owner once famously telling people that he'd like to die on Mars.

However, this bold dream doesn't appear any closer to becoming a reality.

Space X's seventh Starship test flight (X)

Yesterday (16 January), SpaceX launched their seventh un-crewed test rocket into space. The rocket was launched from Texas, around 4.40pm local time, and appeared to be an initial success.

The booster was able to execute a planned return to the ground after propelling the Starship test flight into the fair, which went on to fly for around eight and a half minutes.

However, it would appear ground crew lost contact with the rocket after this point, with a host on the SpaceX livestream telling viewers (via SkyNews): "At this point in time, we can confirm we did lose the ship.

"It looks like we lost contact a little under eight and a half minutes into the flight."

SpaceX later confirmed the loss of the ship via a statement on X, which read: "Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn. Teams will continue to review data from today's flight test to better understand root cause.

Elon Musk has made no secret about his plans for Mars (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

"With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability.

"It was great to see a booster come down, but we are obviously bummed out about ship," SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said of the situation, adding that it would take a while for teams to analyse the data and understand what went wrong.

This isn't the first time SpaceX has experienced such setbacks on their Mars colonisation quest, with the company's sixth test flight also exploding just 10 minutes into it's flight.

Images from the test flight have since been shared on social media (X)

Looks like it's back to the drawing board for now.

However, it doesn't look like Musk will be giving up on his dream of creating a Mars outpost anytime soon, with the 53-year-old making the bold claim that humans could be living on the planet in as little as four years.

Making the declaration on X back in September, Musk added that he envisioned a self-sustaining city on Mars to possibility within the next '20 years' as well.

"Being multiplanetary will vastly increase the probable lifespan of consciousness, as we will no longer have all our eggs, literally and metabolically, on one planet."

Lets just hope they can get over the 10-minute hitch.