LOS ANGELES  -   SpaceX launched its massive Starship rocket but loses contact after eight minutes of flight. The top part of the rocket successfully separated from the booster which then blew up. Contact was then lost with the main rocket. Elon Musk’s company still hailed it as a success and the rocket flew further than the failed first attempt in April. This time the rocket reached space for the first time while in April the vehicle lost control and exploded four minutes after lift-off. Engineers at SpaceX - Musk’s company said that they made “more than a thousand” changes to Starship’s systems after the first failed attempt. The mission plan was broadly the same as before: to send the top part of the two-stage vehicle - the Ship - nearly one full revolution of the Earth. Mission control at Starbase will likely be still coming back down to Earth after what SpaceX hailed as an exciting launch of its uncrewed spacecraft Starship. The company hopes Starship will transform the economics of space, with the eventual goal to build a spacecraft that can take people and cargo back to the Moon later this decade - and ultimately to Mars.