SpaceX Starship’s 9th Test Flight Resulted in the Loss of Both the Ship and Booster

Today at 19:36 Eastern Time the SpaceX Starship super-heavy rocket launched from the Starbase cosmodrome in Texas on its ninth test flight. The launch took place a few minutes later than the previously announced time, but such delays are common practice.

During the ninth test flight, the two stages separated as planned, and the upper stage even made it to space, performing better than the ships had on the last two tests, but SpaceX ultimately lost both stages. “Starship made it to the planned engine shutdown — a big improvement over the last flight. Coasting and reentry leaks caused a loss of pressure. [We now have] Lots of good data to analyze,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on his social media account X. Starship will launch every three to four weeks during the next three test flights, he added.

The ninth test flight marked the first time the Super Heavy booster had been reused, sending Starship on its seventh mission in January. SpaceX replaced just four Raptor engines, meaning the remaining 29 had already been tested.

This is the third fiasco for Starship in a row. True, if during the seventh and eighth test flights they managed to land at least the boosters, now both the booster and the spacecraft itself have been lost. But according to the plan, both parts of the rocket should be reusable.