"We saw the Starship 8 breakup in the upper atmosphere and fall back to earth from the ISS," said Pettit, known for his photography from the lofty perch. Starship, a 400-foot-tall

X has run into serious issues trying to get a prototype upper stage of its Starship to launch into orbit, then make a soft landing.

Like last time, Starship had four mock satellites to eject once the craft reached space on this eighth test flight as a practice for future missions. They resembled SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, thousands of which currently orbit Earth, and were meant to fall back down following their brief taste of space.