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Title: SpaceX's ninth Starship test flight reaches space but fails to deploy
fake satellites

Date: Wed, 28 May 2025 12:00:57 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex...

The Starship super heavy-lift launch vehicle blasted off from SpaceX's
Starbase in Texas for its ninth test flight on Tuesday, 7:37 PM Eastern time.
It was the first Starship flight that reused a Super Heavy booster, which was
also used for the vehicle's seventh test flight. During the vehicle's seventh
and eighth flights, its second stage, or the Starship spacecraft itself,
exploded during ascent. This time, the stage (also known as the "Ship"
completed its ascent burn and even reached space, but it was one victory in a
test flight with mixed results.

SpaceX's Starbase launch tower caught the Super Heavy booster after it flew
back with its "chopstick" arms during the two previous flights. For this one,
the company conducted tests with the booster it didn't do before, such as
making it fly at a higher angle during its descent. Doing so increases the
atmospheric drag on the booster, slowing it down as it descends so that it
requires less propellant. As such, the company had decided to let the booster
splash down into the ocean, as the testing would make it more difficult for
the Starbase chopstick arms to catch it. SpaceX lost contact with the Super
Heavy shortly after it started its landing burn, however, and it experienced
a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" six minutes after launch.

Meanwhile, the Ship stage was able to take on a suborbital trajectory and was
supposed to deploy eight Starlink simulator satellites while it was in space.
It was ultimately unable to deploy the simulator satellites, because its
payload bay door got stuck and wouldn't open. The Ship also encountered an
attitude control error that prevented it from getting into the position it
needed to take for reentry. It started to tumble due to a leak that caused
loss of main tank pressure, before SpaceX lost contact with it 46 minutes
into the flight. While a controlled splashdown was impossible to achieve, the
company still expects Ship's debris to fall within the planned hazard area in
the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX will not be getting all the data it was hoping to get from this
flight, but Elon Musk said there's still a "lot of good data to review." He
also said that the company will be flying the Starship over the next three
flights once every three to four weeks.

StarshipΓÇÖs ninth flight test marked a major milestone for reuse with the
first flight-proven Super Heavy booster launching from Starbase, and once
more returned Starship to space → https://t.co/Gufroc2kUz
pic.twitter.com/RNJkj5OobP

ΓÇö SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 28, 2025

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacex...
reaches-space-but-fails-to-deploy-fake-satellites-120057474.html?src=rss

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