SpaceX Loses Control with Starship During 9th Test Flight

Early Wednesday, SpaceX launched its Starship for the ninth time ever on a test flight that featured the first-ever significant reuse of Starship hardware.

Starship's two stages separated as planned on Flight 9, and the upper stage even reached space.

However, both stages failed before they could accomplish their full flight goals.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on social media after the flight, "Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight!" 

"Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review." Musk said the next three Starship test launches could lift off every three to four weeks in the days ahead.

SpaceX is developing Starship, which is expected to be the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, to help humanity settle the moon and Mars..

The vehicle's two stages are a giant booster called Super Heavy and a 171-foot-tall (52 meters) upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship.

Both are designed to be fully reusable, and both are powered by SpaceX's new Raptor engine — 33 of them for Super Heavy and six for Ship.

The launch was a new milestone for SpaceX marking the first-ever reuse of a Super Heavy boostergure it out."