SpaceX Starship Flight 9 upper stage loses attitude control before Earth’s reentry

SpaceX has launched the Starship Flight 9 from Starbase Texas and successfully deployed the upper stage into orbit, which later lost its attitude control before completing the reentry phase.

After lifting off from the launch pad, the booster sent the ship to orbit and returned for a hard landing in the Gulf of America, which didn’t go as planned due to the incomplete landing burn.

However, the ship fired its six Raptor engines and led the mission to orbit. At this milestone, the ship previously experienced hardware failure, but this wasn’t the case with the latest test, which saw a nominal entry in orbit after completing the ascent burn.

During its suborbital journey, the upper stage didn’t attempt any in-space objectives, including the Starlink simulators deployment as well as a single Raptor engine relit.

SpaceX Starship Flight 9 Upper Stage (Source – SpaceX)

At around 30 minutes in the mission, the ship lost attitude control and began extensive movement. SpaceX had removed several tiles from Starship to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle during reentry. However, the company wasn’t able to test the thermal system due to the abnormal ship’s attitude control.

The mission control continues to receive signals from the ship at around 48 minutes, but later confirms it as lost. However, its visuals from the live stream showed that the ship had made a reentry through Earth’s atmosphere before it went silent.

We’ll wait for more details from SpaceX about the Starship Flight 9 upper stage attitude control and other key information.