SpaceX launched its ninth Starship test flight on May 27 at 6:36 p.m. CT from Starbase, Texas, achieving several firsts in the company’s effort to develop a fully reusable spacecraft—even though both stages were ultimately lost during the flight.
The Super Heavy booster, which had previously flown during the seventh test in January, became the first booster to fly twice in the Starship program. It completed a full ascent burn using all 33 Raptor engines and separated from the Starship upper stage using a hot-staging maneuver. During this process, SpaceX noted that “Super Heavy performed the first deterministic flip followed by its boostback burn.”
As the booster descended toward its splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico, it tested a new flight profile. “By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack results in a slower descent speed which in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn,” SpaceX explained.
This test was intended to gather real-world data to improve performance on future Super Heavy vehicles. However, contact with the booster was lost just after the landing burn began, about six minutes into the flight, due to what SpaceX called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
Meanwhile, the upper stage continued into space and ignited all six Raptor engines for a full-duration burn. These engines had been modified based on findings from the previous test, with SpaceX adding “additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system.”
In orbit, the mission planned to open the payload bay and release eight Starlink simulator satellites, followed by a single-engine relight. But “Starship’s payload bay door was unable to open,” and a control issue prevented the engine restart. As a result, Starship couldn’t get into the proper position for reentry. The vehicle went into an automated safing process before contact was lost about 46 minutes into the flight. All debris was expected to fall within a pre-designated zone in the Indian Ocean.
Despite the outcome, SpaceX called the flight “a major milestone for reuse with the first flight-proven Super Heavy booster” and said that “developmental testing by definition is unpredictable, but every lesson learned marks progress toward Starship’s goal of enabling life to become multiplanetary.”
