Watch as SpaceX's latest Falcon rocket burns then crashes

Video SpaceX supremo Elon Musk's hopes of adding a fifth rocket to his collection of pre-used space hardware were dashed on Wednesday when the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket suffered a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. Now we know why.

The Falcon 9 successfully delivered the two satellites it was carrying into geostationary orbit. The SpaceX team had been hoping to make it four successful landings of the lower stage in a row. However, the floating drone ship Of Course I Still Love You was left needing yet another new paint job after the rocket ran out of fuel and couldn't touchdown on the pad in one piece.

Looks like early liquid oxygen depletion caused engine shutdown just above the deck pic.twitter.com/Sa6uCkpknY

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 17, 2016

Fuel is always an issue with geostationary orbital deliveries – satellites need to be boosted up to 35,786 kilometers (22,236 miles) above sea level, which leaves very little fuel for a landing – thus the need for a floating landing pad, as the rocket can't make it back to land.

SpaceX has already redesigned its fuel tanks once since beginning commercial deliveries to allow more propellant to be carried, and the oxygen it uses is super-chilled to allow more to be fit on board. But with Wednesday's launch there just wasn't enough in the tanks and the engines couldn't take it.

Musk said the impact was so hard that the primary airframe of the rocket is completely toast and the engines were accordioned up into the frame. It's safe to say this one won't be making it to the launch pad again, but Musk said accidents were expected.

As mentioned at the beginning of the year, I'm expecting ~70% success rate on landings for the year. 2016 is the year of experimentation.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 17, 2016

SpaceX's next scheduled delivery is a resupply mission to the International Space Station next month. As that's in low-earth orbit, fuel won't be such a pressing concern. ®