SpaceX Prepares for Ninth Starship Flight Test After Previous Failures

Brownsville, Texas — SpaceX is set to conduct the ninth unmanned flight test of its Starship spacecraft on Tuesday, with a launch window opening at 7:30 p.m. ET. The company aims to demonstrate that Starship can fly to orbit and return safely, a crucial step in sending humans to Mars.

Elon Musk has long expressed a desire to send astronauts to the red planet. However, SpaceX first needs to prove the reliability of Starship following two prior tests that ended in failure. After the eighth flight test in March, communications were lost when several engines shut down unexpectedly.

According to SpaceX, the failure resulted from a hardware issue that caused fuel to ignite inappropriately. While the spacecraft was not intended to self-destruct, it likely did so on its own, scattering debris over parts of the Atlantic Ocean.

During January’s test, stronger-than-expected vibrations led to a similar loss of control, though the first-stage booster successfully returned to the launch site. SpaceX aims to apply lessons learned from these failures to the upcoming flight.

The ninth test will utilize a 400-foot Super Heavy rocket powered by 33 Raptor engines, making it the company’s most powerful system to date. For this test, SpaceX will also reuse 29 of the booster’s engines from the prior test.

The booster will not return to the launch site; instead, it will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico after following a modified flight path. Meanwhile, Starship aims to deploy eight Starlink satellite simulators and test new thermal protection materials during the mission.

“Developmental testing by definition is unpredictable,” SpaceX stated. “But by putting hardware in a flight environment as frequently as possible, we’re able to quickly learn and execute design changes.”