A highly classified U.S. government satellite appears to have been totally lost after being taken into space by a recent launch from Elon Musk's SpaceX, according to a new report.

Dow Jones reported Monday evening that lawmakers had been briefed about the apparent destruction of the secretive payload — code-named Zuma — citing industry and government officials

The payload was suspected to have burned up in the atmosphere after failing to separate perfectly from the upper part of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the report said.

According to Dow Jones, the absence of official word on the incident means that there could have been another chain of events.

The missing satellite may have been worth billions of dollars, industry officials estimated to the wire service.