The Starship separated successfully from the booster which was meant to be reusable. However the booster exploded after separation; The Starship later began spiraling.
Reuters Summary:
- Ninth test launch follows grounding of nearly two months
- Starship flew with re-used booster rocket for first time
- Musk had planned post-flight speech on ‘multiplanetary’ ambitions, but never showed
Context is all. CBS reporting includes the booster issues. Below is the ABC reporting which reports more optimistically.
“For the latest launch, the ninth full test mission of Starship since the first attempt in April 2023, the upper-stage cruise vessel was lofted to space atop a previously flown booster – a first such demonstration of the booster’s reusability.
“But SpaceX lost contact with the 232-foot lower-stage booster during its descent before it plunged into the sea, rather than making the controlled splashdown the company had planned.
Starship, meanwhile, continued into suborbital space but began to spin uncontrollably roughly 30 minutes into the mission. The errant spiraling came after SpaceX canceled a plan to deploy eight mock Starlink satellites into space – the rocket’s “Pez” candy dispenser-like mechanism failed to work as designed.” Reuters
