The ninth test flight of SpaceX’s Starship recently took place, and like several others before, it ended with an explosion.

While not exactly what SpaceX was hoping for, it was also not surprising given that these are test flights that are attempting to prove out the various systems of this incredible rocket that is being designed to take humans to the moon and to Mars in the future.

In this test, the Starship was supposed to launch, go up to orbital velocity, release several demo satellites, and then come back down and do a landing burn before splashing down into the Gulf of Mexico (or Gulf of America, whatever you want to call it). The initial phase of the test went well, with the rocket reaching orbital velocity without a problem. When the team attempted to have the payload doors open, however, they would not, so that step in the process failed.

They were also supposed to relight the Raptor engines in space, but that was not attempted because the Starship lost altitude control. When coming down, the landing burn began and ran for 21 seconds, but then exploded. This was likely due to a fuel leak, though the SpaceX engineers have yet to fully go over all of the data that they gathered to pinpoint exactly what caused the failures.

The flight lasted for about 48 minutes after its initial takeoff from Starbase in Texas at 6:36 PM. This latest failure puts the SpaceX team behind schedule, since they were hoping that they would be able to have a Starship launch and get caught by the Mechazilla arms system prior to April of 2025, which isn’t happening anytime soon.

SpaceX in general and Elon Musk specifically have experienced many failed tests with both the current Starship program as well as their previous programs. This is largely because they are constantly pushing to develop cutting-edge rocket technology, which means failure is going to happen more often than not. These tests do send massive amounts of data back to their base so that they can be fully analyzed and adjustments made for the next round of test flights.

The Starship is the largest rocket ever built and, if it is ever able to make successful launches and landings, it will have the capacity to bring larger payloads to space than ever before. This is seen as an essential component to future landings on the moon and the eventual landings on Mars.

According to SpaceX, test flight 10 is scheduled to take place no earlier than mid-June, though there is no date or time confirmed at this point. They have previously announced a goal to have 25 Starship launches in 2025. So far, the Starship has had five successful test flights and four failures.

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