A second-stage engine on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket suffered a rare malfunction in space during a routine Starlink mission on Thursday night, imperiling the satellites in the company's first rocket failure in more than seven years.

Axar.az reports that roughly an hour after Falcon 9 lifted off from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Thursday night, the rocket's second stage in space failed to reignite and deployed its 20 Starlink satellites into a much lower orbit than planned, where they risk burning up in Earth's atmosphere.

The attempt to reignite the engine in space "resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on his social media platform X, referring to a tongue-in-cheek industry acronym for Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly that usually means explosion.

The botched mission of the world's most active rocket breaks an impressive launch success streak that has maintained the industry dominance of SpaceX, a privately owned company valued at roughly $200 billion, which is relied upon by many countries and space companies to send their satellites into space.