Tuesday evening, SpaceX Starship successfully separated from its Super Heavy rocket booster and entered orbit
However, it subsequently began to rotate and made an uncontrolled re-entry into the Indian Ocean.
According to the company, SpaceX cleared the adjacent airspace where Starship was descending.
The company experienced successes and disasters during the ninth test flight. It was the most seamless Starship test of the year following two consecutive explosions.
On Tuesday evening, the Super Heavy booster launched the Starship from SpaceX’s facility in southern Texas. A flight-proven Super Heavy projectile, which had launched and returned during Starship’s seventh flight test, was also employed for the first time.
The Starship successfully entered space after the hefty booster separated. However, the ship could not deploy mock satellites in an intended test due to an inability to open a side cargo hatch.
Starship’s attitude control was lost later in the voyage, rendering it incapable of accurately orienting itself for re-entry.
The Federal Aviation Administration cleared SpaceX to conduct the ninth flight test of its Starship rocket system less than a week after the back-to-back explosions earlier this year.
SpaceX captured the Starship’s heavy booster rocket for the second occasion in January during its descent. The Starship successfully separated from the booster and ignited its rockets to ascend to orbit. However, it was shortly lost due to an anomaly.
The FAA was compelled to divert numerous aircraft in the airspace near Puerto Rico due to debris from Starship falling into the airspace.
In March, SpaceX conducted an additional test. For the third attempt, the Super Heavy booster was successfully separated and captured by the launch tower in Texas. The Starship entered space; however, it began to spiral eight minutes into the voyage after losing multiple Raptor engines.
The FAA expanded the extent of hazard areas in the U.S. and other countries for the flight due to the two explosions, as determined by an updated safety analysis provided by SpaceX.
Following the conclusion of an inquiry into the loss of Starship during its eighth flight test, SpaceX implemented numerous hardware modifications to enhance reliability.
