A SpaceX rocket fell over and collapsed on Friday night (NZ time), just one day after its predecessor exploded following a test flight.
The Starship SN9 rocket was in its construction building at the Boca Chia, Texas testing facility when the stand holding up the rocket gave out, reports say.
The vehicle assembly building caught the ship and stopped it from falling to the ground, according to The Daily Mail.
It's unclear whether the rocket was damaged when it fell over.
The collapse of the ship comes just a day after the test flight of its predecessor, Starship SN8, completed its first high-altitude flight on Thursday (NZ time).
Despite the SN8 ship exploding upon impact with Earth, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk deemed the launch a success, tweeting: "Mars, here we come!!"
In late November, Musk said there was a one in three chance of the rocket landing in one piece.
"Lot of things need to go right, so maybe 1/3 chance," he tweeted.
Eventually Musk hopes that the Starship prototype will take people to Mars, but the next mission is already off to a rough start with the collapse of SN9.
SpaceX announced it would soon move SN9 to the launch pad shortly after SN8 took flight - the newer prototype was set to take off sometime next week.
According to Musk, SN9 was developed in parallel to SN8, following a theme of "building successive generations of prototypes" rapidly so they can test and iterate quickly.
"SN8's flight test is an exciting next step in the development of a fully reusable transportation system capable of carrying both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond," SpaceX wrote.
The SN8 Starship, which is 50 metres tall and nine metres in diameter, flew over the Gulf of Mexico before crash-landing in Texas.
An issue with the fueling system caused the rocket to slam into the ground and explode - it was the highest and riskiest flight for the vehicle yet.
Multiple Starship prototypes are being worked on at Boca Chica; the SN10, SN11, and SN12 rockets are in early phases of assembly.
