As SpaceX prepares for 9th Starship launch, here's a recap of every previous flight

Yahoo

23-05-2025

It could be a matter of days until SpaceX launches its gargantuan Starship spacecraft on its next flight test.
The 400-foot launch system vehicle, composed of both a rocket and an upper portion for crew and cargo, is due in the years ahead to play a pivotal role in human spaceflight.
For NASA, Starship is the vehicle the space agency selected to transport astronauts from the moon's orbit down to the lunar surface for its upcoming Artemis III mission. And for billionaire Elon Musk, the head of SpaceX, Starship could one day fulfill his dream of making "life multiplanetary" by sending the first humans to Mars.
But the vehicle, which has undergone more than two years of testing, has a long way to go in its development before its ready to venture deep into the cosmos.
Across its first eight flight tests, which began in April 2023, Starship has yet to reach orbit – instead traveling at a lower-altitude on a suborbital trajectory. And the rocket's first two flight tests of 2025 have infamously been marred by unexpected explosions.
Musk and his commercial spaceflight company no doubt hope to get things back on track with the upcoming Starship flight nine, which the Federal Aviation Administration has officially licensed for launch. SpaceX also recently received critical regulatory approval to increase the number of annual Starship launches to 25 from the company's Starbase in South Texas.
Ahead of the next impending flight test, here's a recap of every one of Starship's first eight launches.
SpaceX news: Why Starship exploded twice so far in 2025
In the most recent launch March 6, flight operators lost contact with the 165-foot upper portion of the vehicle, which exploded less than 10 minutes into the flight, creating debris visible from Florida to the Caribbean.
The explosion occurred despite SpaceX assuring that what mission teams learned from the seventh flight prompted them to make several modifications to the vehicle.
The company provided more information on the cause of the explosion hours after the flight on its website, saying that "an energetic event" in Starship's aft section led to the failure of several Raptor engines. As a result, the vehicle lost control and communications ceased with ground operators, SpaceX said.
The company once again began working with the Federal Aviation Administration to perform a mishap investigation.
"With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today's flight will help us improve Starship's reliability," SpaceX said on its website.
Despite the failure of the Starship vehicle, the spacecraft's 232-foot "Super Heavy" rocket booster managed to once again navigate back to the launch pad for the third time ever. The maneuver involves SpaceX catching the booster with giant mechanical arms known as chopsticks.
Having the capability of catching the Starship booster is crucial for SpaceX, giving the company a completely reusable booster that is able to launch again.
The first Starship demonstration of the year also ended in a fiery explosion after the Starship vehicle was lost during its suborbital flight.
Mission controllers lost contact with the spacecraft within 8 1/2 minutes of its flight before determining that it was destroyed in what the company called a 'rapid unscheduled disassembly.' Video on social media showed the explosion and its aftermath as remains of the spacecraft were seen breaking up in what looked like a stunning meteor shower.
SpaceX, which conducted an investigation with the FAA, determined that the mishap was due to a series of propellant leaks and fires in the aft section of the vehicle that caused 'all but one of Starship's engines to execute controlled shut down sequences." This led to the communication breakdown and the vehicle to trigger its own self destruction.
On his social media site X, Musk made light of the fiery end.
"Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!" Musk posted, along with a user video of the Starship debris raining down near the Atlantic Ocean. He added in another post that "improved versions" of the spaceship and booster are "already waiting for launch."
The launch did end with one major accomplishment – the second-ever successful return of the rocket booster to the launch pad.
The final Starship flight test of 2024 took place in front of a newly-elected President Donald Trump.
The Starship began its projected trajectory at 5 p.m. ET over the Gulf of Mexico, since renamed by the U.S. government as the Gulf of America, following a similar suborbital path as previous flights. The rocket booster splashed down off the coast of Texas seven minutes after launch.
The Starship vehicle itself flew for more than an hour before splashing down at 6:05 p.m. ET in the Indian Ocean.
As for the booster, SpaceX officials had hoped to replicate what they did for the first time in the previous test, steering it back autonomously to the landing pad before catching it with two giant mechanical arms. But during the flight, officials opted to skip the complex maneuver for safety reasons.
In an update on its website, SpaceX attributed the decision to data from "automated health checks" of hardware on both the launch and catch tower.
The company also reignited its Raptor engines in space to attempt an orbital burn – a crucial maneuver to one day bring a vehicle back to the ground. The launch also included plans to fly the ship at a "higher angle of attack" to test what it can handle on future landings.
For its fifth test flight, the empty Starship blasted off from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. As in previous tests, the vehicle flew on a trajectory over the Gulf.
In a first, the first-stage Super Heavy booster flew back to the launch pad. SpaceX had built a launch tower with massive mechanized metal arms, nicknamed "chopsticks," that then managed to catch the descending booster in a daring maneuver.
Prior to the booster dropping and landing, it had pushed the Starship upward into the atmosphere, sending it soaring more than 130 miles high.
An hour after liftoff, Starship made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean. Ahead of the demo, SpaceX engineers reworked the rocket's heat shield, replacing the entire thermal protection system with newer tiles and a backup ablative layer.
The craft experienced a successful separation from the booster, which saw 32 of 33 engines igniting properly during launch, about seven minutes into the flight.
The booster successfully came back down to Earth and splashed down in the Gulf as planned and all six of Starship's engines powered it into successful orbital insertion.
Heat shields protecting the outside of the craft took a beating, with at least one throwing debris into one of the live-streaming external cameras, but it managed to make a successful re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.
Roughly one hour and six minutes into the flight, Starship completed its first-ever landing burn and splashed down into the Indian Ocean to raucous applause.
In the third test, the Starship succeeded in separating from the booster and proceeding to orbit within minutes of launching, where it conducted a series of in-flight tests while coasting through space.
Video of its flight beamed back to Earth using SpaceX's Starlink Satellite network was able to capture the beginning of the spacecraft's re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. However, the signal was lost about an hour into the mission before SpaceX concluded that the craft likely broke apart.
Despite Starship's failure to make its planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean, SpaceX said the rocket still achieved several key milestones, including the successful firing of its 33 Raptor engines in the booster and the opening of a payload door.
During the second launch test of the Starship, the rocket survived for longer and achieved some milestones, but it still eventually exploded.
The booster was able to successfully separate from the rocket, which reached space before the ground crew lost communication with it after nine minutes. Three minutes later, SpaceX lost both the booster and the spacecraft in two explosions.
Rather than seeing it as a setback, SpaceX expressed optimism about the stage separation while saying the rest would just be valuable data to help them remedy whatever went wrong.
The Starship got off to a rough start when it exploded just four minutes into its inaugural test flight.
The craft was able to launch at SpaceX's private Starbase site in Texas, but telemetry data revealed that several of the spacecraft's engines had failed, triggering the explosion before the booster and spacecraft could even separate.
SpaceX later confirmed the rocket's flight termination system was activated to destroy the tumbling vehicle before it met its fiery end.
Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [e-mail]
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: SpaceX readies for Starship flight 9. What happened on previous tests?