SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket failed again. It was the ninth test flight but the third failure in a row for the massive 122-metre-high rocket. The flight spun out of control about halfway through the mission but failed to achieve some of its key targets.

However, the flight engineers can take some modest comfort in that the mission passed through two points where the previous missions had failed catastrophically.

This particular flight used a previously flown booster section which seemed to perform correctly. The mission went wrong during its descent stage when it should have made a ‘soft’ controlled landing on the sea, but plunged into the Indian Ocean.

The mission also failed to deploy eight dummy satellites. Evidently the dispenser for the satellites failed to operate.

“Not looking great with a lot of our on-orbit objectives for today,” SpaceX broadcaster Dan Huot said on a company livestream.

Elon Musk, in a message on X said: “Lot of good data to review. Launch cadence for next 3 flights will be faster, at approximately 1 every 3 to 4 weeks.”

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Tags: elon musk, spacex, starship