SpaceX loses another Starship on test flight as Musk seeks to renew focus

STARBASE, Texas – SpaceX launched its Starship rocket Tuesday evening in a mission that came after two failures and as Elon Musk, returning to his companies after a controversial stint in the White House, looks to inject renewed energy into his space venture.

But while the test started without issues, the spacecraft lost control well into its flight, started tumbling and eventually came apart, dealing a setback to the company as it desperately seeks a successful test mission.

A stainless-steel behemoth that stands 400 feet tall, Starship is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, and its test flights are crucial to the future of America’s space ambitions. Tuesday’s mission started off with the smooth launch of a booster that had flown during a previous test flight. The spacecraft separated from the booster, then fired six engines to propel it on a trajectory across the globe. But well after the ship’s engines shut down, SpaceX controllers lost command of the vehicle.

The company said it wanted a successful flight to demonstrate the capabilities of the vehicle and was hoping to test how the spacecraft fared as it reentered the atmosphere. It was unclear what caused the spacecraft to start spinning out of control. The booster also came apart as it fell back toward the Gulf of Mexico. But unlike in past flights, SpaceX was not planning on trying to recover the booster and had intended for it to be discarded.

“The last two months have been an absolute, like, gauntlet for a lot of people, and we’re continuing to learn more about this ship and about this rocket,” Dan Huot, a SpaceX commentator, said on the company’s live broadcast. “We are trying to do something that is impossibly hard.”

Starship is a key part of NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon under its Artemis program. And Musk conceived of the fully reusable vehicle in the first place as a way to get people to Mars – SpaceX’s ultimate goal.

After his time in Washington, as a Trump adviser and the head of the U.S. DOGE Service effort, there were signs that Musk was eager to get the Starship program back on track.

Before the launch, shortly after 7:30 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, the SpaceX founder and CEO had been scheduled to give a presentation at the company’s South Texas factory about his plans – inspiring to many, quixotic to others – to regularly send Starships to the Red Planet ahead of a human landing. But Musk said in post on X that the talk was postponed “until after the Starship Flight 9 launch tonight.”

The usual drama behind a launch was heightened this time around because the previous two Starships exploded over the Gulf of Mexico in tests this year. The company needed to prove that it could fly Starship without another failure – or what the company calls a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

The company said it had learned from the past failures and made upgrades for this flight.

The Federal Aviation Administration oversaw SpaceX’s investigation into the two mishaps and cleared the company for flight. But given the potential for another failure, the FAA for this flight dramatically expanded what’s known as the “aircraft hazard area,” a safety zone that air traffic must steer clear of during the launch. For the most recent test flight, it was 885 miles; for this flight, it was 1,600 miles, extending from South Texas through the Straits of Florida to the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, the FAA said.

Starship comprises two stages – the Super Heavy booster, which has 33 engines, and the Starship spacecraft itself, which has six. During the previous two test flights, the booster flew successfully, then returned to its launch site, where it was caught by a pair of chopstick-like mechanical arms in a stunning display of aerial acrobatics.

For this flight, the company said it intended to put the booster through a gantlet of “off-nominal” scenarios to see how it performed. As a result, it started to fall into the Gulf of Mexico instead of returning to the launch site. But SpaceX commentators said it came apart as it descended.

Tuesday’s test came as NASA is seeking to inject a sense of urgency into its delayed Artemis program. NASA has said its goal is to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2027.

The space agency is investing some $4 billion into Starship, which would ferry astronauts to and from the lunar surface. Blue Origin, the venture owned by Jeff Bezos, also has a contract to develop a spacecraft to land astronauts on the moon. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

SpaceX must prove it can complete a series of increasingly difficult challenges, from being able to refuel the Starship spacecraft in Earth orbit – a feat that has never been accomplished – to flying people in it and eventually landing on the surface of another celestial body. But there have been setbacks, including delays in Starship’s development, that make the 2027 date unlikely.

Meanwhile, China plans to send astronauts to the moon before 2030, and some members of Congress are worried it will get there before the U.S. is able to return.