Starship Flight 9: A crucial step forward, but still disappointing

SpaceX quickly mastered the ability to catch a Super Heavy booster. It’s exciting to watch. And Flights 5 and 6 suggested Starship could successfully fly, survive re-entry, and land. But launching rockets is never that straightforward, especially when it’s the biggest one ever made by humanity.

The “Block 2” version of planned updates to Starship - “bringing major improvements to reliability and performance” - promised much. However, Flights 7 and 8 didn’t go to plan as the upper stage failed before reaching SECO (second stage engine cut-off).

Starship Flight 9. Credit: SpaceX

After a couple of holds at T-40 seconds, Flight 9 successfully lifted-off at 12.36am Wednesday 28th May (UK time) or 6.36pm Tuesday 27th May (local time). This was special because the Super Heavy booster was the same one used and caught in Flight 7, including 29 of its 33 Raptor engines. And it was actually the third flight for one of the Raptors. This marked a crucial step forward towards full re-usability.

Following stage separation, Super Heavy performed the first-ever deterministic flip, followed by the boostback burn. The plan for this test flight was never to catch the booster, but instead to fly at a higher angle of attack during its descent back to Earth. This will save fuel and increase performance capability in future flights. As Super Heavy approached its intended splashdown area in the Gulf of America (formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico), it re-lit all of the central 13 Raptor engines - but something failed at this point and there was a RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly).

Stage separation. Credit: SpaceX

The focus was then all on Starship’s upper stage. Thankfully, on this occasion, it completed a full-duration ascent burn and SECO. However, viewers paying close attention to detail would have noticed what looked to be a couple of possible anomalies. Focus soon shifted to the planned payload test, as we were treated with views of the insides of the craft, but the door failed to open which prevented the deployment of the eight Starlink simulator satellites. This was disappointing.

Starship increasingly began to spin out of control, which resulted in the planned re-lighting of a single Raptor engine being bypassed. By now, it was obvious that Starship was going to burn up on re-entry because it couldn’t hold steady to allow the heat shields to do their job. And, indeed, contact was lost 46 minutes into the flight.

Flight 9 could be viewed as a glass half empty or a glass half full. But it wasn’t a great success.

Written by Iain Scott, 28th May 2025