After spectacular Back-to-back errors on the upper stage in January And March, SpaceX launched a super tough Starship Rocket on the ninth test flight of the program on Tuesday, but came in new problems with both phases that prevented controlled descents for Splashdown.
Somewhere more than 40 minutes after the flight, SpaceX indicated that it had lost contact with the spaceship and that the capsule may have been destroyed during the attempted return.
“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a fast unplanned dismantling,” placed SpaceX on X. “Teams will continue to assess data and work on our next flight test.”
The super tough first phase, after a deliberate steeper, more stressful descent process to Splashdown near the Texas Gulf Coast, suffered a catastrophic failure when the engines were again intensive for what would have been a relatively soft Splashdown.
SpaceX's Mega Rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Tuesday 27 May 2025. / Credit: Eric Gay / AP
SpaceX confirmed that the stage had been lost, but given the extreme nature of testing, the loss was not out of the blue surprise. In the meantime, the top stage of the Starship managed to reach the planned suborbital process after a seemingly flawless version of its six engines.
But a few minutes later, a door on the side of the rocket could not open, which prevented the planned deployment of simulated Starlink -Satellites.
With that test postponed to a future flight, SpaceX engineers hoped to restore a single Raptor engine to test his start-up options in space. But a seemingly floating leak brought the spacecraft in a slow twist that released a controlled return and Splashdown. Given the lack of control, an intact splashdown seemed unlikely.
SpaceX's next generation Starship Space vessels On top of its Super Heavy Booster is launched on his ninth test on the company's launch platform in Starbase, Texas, US, 27 May 2025. / Credit: Joe Skipper / Reuters
The launch of the huge rocket, known as Integrated Flight Test 9, began with a ground-fitting launch at 7:37 PM EDT from SpaceX's vast Boca Chica, Texas, Production and flight facility-starbase-on the coast of Texas.
The mission contained the first use of a previously flown super tough first phase, which flew itself back to Capture by Giant mechanical On the launch tower during the seventh test flight of the program in January.
For the last launch of the program, the Super Heavy followed, powered by 33 methane-driven bird of prey engines up to 16 million pounds of thrust, the same flight plan as earlier missions, resulting in the upper stage of the starship from the thick lower atmosphere on an eastern route to the street of Florida.
Equipped with six own birds of prey, the 160-foot long spaceship separated about two and a half minutes after the launch of his booster, on the way to a suborbital route that it was wearing a planned vertical Splashdown in the southern Indian Ocean.
In the meantime, the super -heavy used another method to turn around before the trip back to the launch site in an attempt to save floating gases. It was also programmed to fly a much steeper descent than normal to learn more about the stress that it can endure safely.
“The booster will try to fly in a higher perspective during its descent,” said SpaceX on its website. “By increasing the amount of atmospheric resistance on the vehicle, a higher perspective can result in a lower descent speed that in turn requires less driving gas for initial landing burning.”
“Getting data from practice about how the booster is able to arrange its flight against this higher perspective will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy,” said SpaceX.
As a result of the high-stress tests, SpaceX was aimed at trying a splashdown in the wave instead of a launch cushion shelter where critical infrastructure could be damaged in a landing accident.
It turned out that that was a good decision.
The spaceship is expected to follow the same flight plan as the previous two missions, both of which failed before they could reach their planned processes. This time the spaceship passed the previous obstacles, but the floating gas leak prevent a controlled return.
Launch attempt follows two fractures in the wide vessels
Tuesday's launch came on the heels of Back-to-Back Starship-Extenses of the Starship during the two previous test flights that generated spectacular showers of flaming debris along the flight routes.
Since then, SpaceXing engineers have performed extensive tests and have implemented multiple upgrades and improvements to minimize the opportunities for comparable malfunctions. The Federal Aviation Administration, which Overview of both failure researchSpaceX gave permission to continue with IFT-9 last week after completing the IFT-8 assessment.
“The FAA carried out an extensive safety review of the SpaceX Starship Flight 8 accident and found that the company has tackled the causes of the accident satisfactorily, and therefore the Starship vehicle can return to the flight,” the desk said in a statement. “The FAA will verify that SpaceX implements all corrective actions.”
In both previous failures, Commercial aviation traffic In and around the Strait of Florida, it was stopped pending confirmation of rubbing debris was no longer a threat. For the ninth flight, the length of the hazard area of the aircraft was expanded from around 1,000 status of miles to around 1,840 miles and SpaceX was required to launch the rocket during non-peak air travel.
Plans for the Moon and Mars
The Super Heavy-Starship Rocket is crucial for NASA's plans to land Astronauts on the moon In the coming years and to Musk's plans to eventually send people to Mars.
NASA is planning to use a variant of the Starship Upper Stage as a lunar lander in the Artemis program of the desk. NASA wants to use its own rocket and crew capsule to transport astronauts to Lunar Orbit where the SpaceX Lander will wait to wear them to the surface.
The impression of an artist of a spaceship variant on the surface of the moon. / Credit: NASA/ SpaceX
The Trump administration wants to cancel NASA's Space Launch System Rocket and Orion Crew Capsule, so that the Future of the Artemis programAs it is currently considered, in question. For his part, Musk has argued that the United States must leave the lunar missions, which he called an 'distraction', and instead goes directly to Mars.
In any case, it is expected that the super heavy rocket will play an important role in future deep space exploration, regardless of the target. But several successful test flights will be needed to demonstrate safety and reliability that is needed for astronauts and passengers who go to the moon, mars or afterwards.
SpaceX has made changes after two catastrophic explosions
The last two spaceships, launched January 16 And March 6Both ended with non-related catastrophic explosions when they approached their planned suborbital routes.
During the January flight, a floating gas leak in a non -oppressed “attic” above the Raptor engines led to persistent fires that eventually caused the closure of all engines of the spacecraft. Telemetry was lost eight minutes and 20 seconds after the launch and a little later the vehicle broke apart.
“The most likely cause of the ship loss became stronger several times as a harmonic response during the flight than during testing, which led to increased stress on hardware in the drive system,” SpaceX said on its website. “The subsequent floats surpassed the venting capacity of the attic area of the ship and resulted in persistent fires.”
After extensive soil tests, SpaceX made changes to connecting and thrust levels and installed extra ventilation openings and a new nitrogen treatment system in the attic to reduce the potential for fire.
Those solutions seemed to work as expected during the eighth test flight of the Starship in March, but the upper phase suffered a catastrophic failure again. This time the spaceship suffered a “hardware error in one of the upper phase raptor engines that resulted in unintended driving gas that mixing and inflammation,” said SpaceX on its website.
To solve the problem, Raptors in the upper phase now have a new nitrogen purification system, improvements in the drain drain system and tighter joints in important areas. SpaceX also develops an improved Raptor -Engine that will eliminate various error modes.
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