SpaceX’s Starship Flight 9 launched from Starbase in south Texas on May 27, 2025. The first-ever reused Super Heavy booster exploded during its landing burn over the Gulf of Mexico. Starship itself touched orbit, then lost control and tumbled back to Earth. Image is a video still via SpaceX live feed/ Videos from Space.At 18:37 CDT (23:37 UTC) last night (May 27, 2925), SpaceX’s Starship rocket lifted off for the 9th time. This was the first attempt to launch Starship on a reused booster stage, and it saw some success; for the first time in three tests, Starship made it into space. However, little else went according to plan. When attempting to deploy mock satellites, Starship’s bay doors failed to open. The craft then sprang a fuel tank leak, causing it to spin out of control and eventually burn up as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere. The booster stage, meanwhile, was intended to splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, but exploded around 6 minutes into the test. So goes another test flight of Starship, the vehicle that billionaire Elon Musk hopes will carry people to Mars.
Starship – the world’s biggest and most powerful launch vehicle at 400 feet ((122 meters) tall – is key to Musk’s Mars dreams. And Test Flight 9 did soar past the explosion points for two earlier test flights this year. But then, according to The Guardian, the ship:
… sprang leaks and began spinning out of control as it coasted through space on a suborbital path before re-entering the atmosphere out of control and eventually breaking apart.
Report on the launch from BlueSky
Lets unpack what happened with this starship flight 9 launch. There’s some interesting stuff to notice.
The launch seemed to go very smoothly. No noticeable issues with booster, which is becoming a trend.
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Booster separation seemed to be smooth. Raptor’s engines lit.
We got a call out a few seconds later that chamber pressure was nominal on Starship’s six raptor engines.
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 8:15 PM
At about T+ 5:14, all six Raptors seem fine, but at 7:28 we can see a hot spot on one of the vacuum Raptor engines, near the bottom of the thrust chamber. That shouldn’t be there.
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 8:18 PM
SECO (Starship Engine Cutoff) takes place around 9 min as expected, but as soon as the engines come off, the spacecraft enters a perceptible roll. That should not be happening.
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 8:22 PM
By around T+30:00 or so the Starship is in a fast spin. SpaceX announcer Dan Huot says “We did spring a link in some of the fuel tank systems inside of Starship. A lot of those are used for our attitude control.”
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 8:25 PM
At around T+45:41 we received the choppy final imagery from Starship as it broke apart over the Indian ocean.
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel.bsky.social) May 27, 2025 at 8:33 PM
Bottom line: SpaceX’s Starship rocket lifted off for the 9th time on May 27. For the first time in three tests, Starship made it into space, then sprang a fuel tank leak, causing it to spin out of control and eventually burn up as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere.