Starship launch ends in double failure yet deemed a milestone launch by SpaceX

SpaceX has conducted its ninth test flight for Starship, the world's most powerful rocket, and while the flight ended in fiery explosions, the flight was deemed a major milestone.

The Elon Musk-led space-faring company launched Starship on its ninth test flight at 6:36 p.m. CT on Tuesday, May 27, marking the first time that a Super Heavy booster has been reused for a launch, with the first time this particular booster was used being in Flight 7. SpaceX wrote on X that Flight 9 was intended to push Super Heavy to "intentionally push Super Heavy to the limits," in order to gain real-world data to improve the next-generation booster. So, what happened to Super Heavy and the upper stage, Ship?

Super Heavy performed adequately, demonstrating its ability to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent back to Earth. Super Heavy separated from Starship correctly, and upon its re-entry back to its designated splashdown area within the Gulf of America, Super Heavy relit its 13 center and middle ring Raptor engines. Unfortunately, the booster was lost just after the landing burn began, resulting in an unscheduled disassembly, or boom, only 6 minutes and 20 seconds after launch.

As for the upper stage, Ship achieved a full-duration ascent burn, again reaching orbit. However, things got complicated after that, as one of Ship's objectives was to deploy eight dummy versions of SpaceX's Starlink satellites approximately 18.5 minutes after liftoff. Unfortunately, that didn't happen as the payload door wasn't able to open fully. SpaceX abandoned the deployment of the payload, and approximately 30 minutes after launch Ship started to tumble, which was caused by a leak in the fuel-tank systems. SpaceX abandoned any plans of a soft splashdown for Ship, instead opting for it to break up over the Indian Ocean.

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"Starship's ninth flight test marked a major milestone for reuse with the first flight-proven Super Heavy booster launching from Starbase, and once more returned Starship to space. Data review is underway, and new improvements will be implemented as work begins to prepare the next Starship and Super Heavy vehicles for flight. Developmental testing by definition is unpredictable, but every lesson learned marks progress toward Starship's goal of enabling life to become multiplanetary," writes SpaceX