SpaceX Starship Flight Test 9 | Booster explodes over Gulf, Starship tumbles after SECO

Today, Starship 35 & Super Heavy Booster 14 is set to launch for the 9th test flight of the Starship program. SpaceX will be keying in heavily on the success of Starship 35 after the last 2 Starships, the 1st 2 flights of the block 2 (or version 2) Starship vehicles, both failed during their ascent phase.

Interestingly, even though those 2 Starship failures both appeared similar in nature, SpaceX says they were 2 different issues which caused fires, loss of attitude control, & ultimately. a RUD

This is also the 1st time a previously flown & caught Super Heavy booster will fly for a second time as Super Heavy Booster 14 flew on Test Flight 7. I believe 27 of the 33 Raptor engines on Booster 14 are the same ones which flew on Flight 7 as well.

A couple of interesting notes/plans for today's flight...

- Booster 14's 2nd flight is definitely its last. There are no plans to catch the booster today as SpaceX is attempting a new, more aggressive landing profile. It will be coming in very fast to its splashdown location in the Gulf and will also shut off its engines higher in the air, meaning it will likely slam into the water at a significant speed, so SpaceX did not want to risk destroying the launch site while trying this aggressive landing.

- Once again, Starlink load simulators have been loaded onto Starship. If this Starship actually makes it to the coast phase, SpaceX will again try to deploy the fake Starlink satellites.

- Another in-flight engine relight is planned to make sure the engines can fire up again in space. That's kinda necessary for the burn that will get the Starship out of Earth's gravitational grip for when it's time to go to deep space. Also, a de-orbit burn to bring it back home.

- Starship reentry (cool shots of plasma build up as ship reenters Earth's atmosphere), heat shield stress testing (several areas of Starship are intentionally missing heat shield tiles to see how much heat the vehicle can take during reentry), & of course the flip & burn into the Indian Ocean if it makes it through reentry.





SpaceX official live stream for launch

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