Billionaire's multi-million dollar rocket crashes in a fireball just seconds after take-off

A Tokyo billionaire's £2m ($2.7m) rocket blasted off on Friday 29... Only it got about 50ft off the ground before spectacularly crashing to the floor.

Japanese entrepreneur and owner of Interstellar Technologies Takafumi Hori launched his unmanned rocket, MOMO-2 at about 20:30 GMT on Friday from a test site in southern Hokkaido.

The wannabe space billionaire suffered a massive blow when his rocket climbed about 50ft in the sky before falling back down to the ground in a tremendous fireball.

This was the second attempt to send Japan's first privately funded rocket into space. The first MOMO rocket launch happened last year and also ended in failure.

The event was televised and thankfully no injuries were reported.

Mr Takafumi took to social media to share the charred remains of the rocket.

In his post, he said:

Thank you for your report. The launch experiment of Momo2 is finished. The launch of a rocket and launch site after a free fall has been secured around 13:20 today.

Hori continued: 'The firing range of the scene has been burned, but there is no damage to the large facilities. We would like to report and thank you for all your support, as we have finished the experiment without personal damage. Thank you so much for all.

'I could not reach the universe, but I would like to continue to determine the data analysis and cause of this time. In some way, I will report back to you about the results of the experiment.

This time too many people have carried their feet to taiki-Cho. I'm sorry I can't follow your expectations, but I would be happy if you could watch the challenge next time.'

The failed launch was meant to send the rocket carrying a cargo of observational equipment to an altitude of over 100 kilometres (62 miles).

Seemingly unfazed by yet another set back, Interstellar Technologies are resolved to continue rocket development, hoping to learn from this recent failure.

Read more: This man wants to prove the Earth is flat with a homemade rocket. And he's got a new launch date