Updated: May 27, 8:25 pm ET: The announcer on SpaceX broadcast said the Starship would break in above and fall into the landing zone of the Indian Ocean. They added that the super booster was indeed lost.
Updated: May 27, 8:18 pm ET: SpaceX expects total loss to the interstellar spacecraft due to uncontrolled reentry. It is expected to fall into the Indian Ocean, or at least a piece of the vehicle.
Updated: May 27, 8:13 pm ET: About 30 minutes of mission, SpaceX announced that the Starship had fallen into an irrecoverable spin due to loss of attitude control. The spacecraft is suborbital and will undergo atmospheric reentry, but this will be uncontrolled. SpaceX pushed Starship further than the previous two tests, but this latest flight could hardly be called a success.
Updated: May 27, 8:02 pm ET: Starship exploded from a Boca Chica launch stand at 7:30 pm ET after a brief holding of a pair. All 33 Raptor engines are in service, fully integrated Rocket survived the Max-Q, popular stage and stage separation. However, soon after, SpaceX lost telemetry due to the super booster and could not attempt a controlled landing. The booster is probably lost. As for the ship in the previous stage, it continued along the journey and survived the trek into space, unlike the two past launches. SpaceX tried to open the deployment door at 7:54 pm but bailed when the door refused to open all the way. The company hopes to deploy simulated star-striped satellites during the demonstration.
The original article is as follows:
The world’s largest rocket is preparing for its ninth flight after a back-to-back anomaly. SpaceX prepared lifts for the lift Tuesday, hoping this rocket ticket has made several improvements since the last flight.
Starship is scheduled to rise on Tuesday, May 27 at a launch window that opens at 7:30 pm ET. The fully integrated rocket will take the ninth test flight from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. As shown below, the release will be live on SpaceX’s website and through the company page on X.
Watch the ninth flight test of the Starship →
– SpaceX (@spacex) May 23, 2025
You can listen within 30 minutes before the scheduled webcast start time. You can also watch the conference through third-party providers, which we provide below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okozxhn9noa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6tp0il4z64
For the upcoming launch, SpaceX will use the super-heavy booster that has been flying before. The booster was previously launched and landed in the Rocket’s seventh test flight on January 16, and 29 of its 33 Raptor engines have been in flight. This will mark the first time SpaceX has rebooted the booster for its Starship rocket, an important step towards its reusability. The Starship is a fully usable launcher, meaning its overweight booster and upper stage (called the ship) both need to be captured by the 400-foot Mechazilla tower.
SpaceX has been making significant progress in Starship’s 232-foot-high (71-meter) overweight booster, grabbing the booster in three-thirds of four attempts so far. However, the Rockets cannot say the same thing on the upper stage, but suffered a malfunction in the past two test flights.
During flights 7 in January, the previous phase of the Starship suffered engine problems, forcing an early shutdown, causing it to rupture and rain on and on the Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean. In less than two months, during Flight 8, the upper stage suffered another major failure, spinning uncontrollably before breaking a moment after launch. Both times, the previous stage should have a soft splash on the coast of Western Australia after about an hour of rising.
The failure prompted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct an investigation, which conducted a safety review of the rockets. Last week, the FAA provided the green light for SpaceX to launch Starship for its ninth test flight. SpaceX also reported that it had identified the issue and made “several hardware changes.” The company said one of the rocket’s engines failed to launch during Boostback Burn, possibly due to overheating of the engine’s ignition equipment. SpaceX has added thermal insulation to the Starship’s engine this time, hoping it won’t encounter the same problem again.
SpaceX wrote that during Tuesday’s flight, Super “will conduct various experiments aimed at generating data to improve the performance and reliability of future boosters.” SpaceX said the rocket will also reach goals it failed to achieve in its last two test flights, including deployment of payloads and “multiple reentry experiments aimed at returning the vehicle to the Catch launch site.”
SpaceX’s Starship is a key part of NASA’s plan to return to the moon as part of the agency’s Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the Lunar Surface by 2027. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also bets on the company’s Starship Rocket so he plans to land humans on Mars. Before Tuesday’s launch, Musk will hold a company speech titled “The Way to Make Life Multiple People,” which will be broadcast live on X at 1 p.m. ET.
