The Spacex spacecraft successfully separated from its super -heavy rocket reinforcement and reached orbit on Tuesday night, but then began to turn and made an uncontrolled re -entry into the Indian Ocean. Spacex had cleared the surrounding airspace where the spacecraft was going down, according to the company.
The ninth test flight provided a combination of successes and failures for the company. It was the softer ship ship test of the year, after two consecutive explosions. Starship, launched at the top of the Super Heavy reinforcement, moved away from the Spacex facilities in southern Texas on Tuesday night. It was also the first launch to use a Super Heavy reinforcement tested by flight, which had launched and returned during the seventh Starship flight test.
The heavy reinforcement was separated successfully and the spacecraft entered the space. But the ship could not open a side load hatch to display simulated satellites in a planned test. Later on the flight, Starship lost control of the attitude, which means that he could no longer be oriented for re -entry.
The ninth flight test occurred less than a week after the Federal Aviation Administration Clear spacex To perform the test flight of your Starship rocket system after those consecutive explosions earlier this year.
In January, Spacex caught the Heavy Starship reinforcement rocket In his descent for the second time. Starship separated successfully from the reinforcement and turned on his rockets to ascend to orbit, but soon lost after suffering an anomaly. Starship’s debris fell into the airspace near Puerto Rico, which led FAA to redirect several airplanes in airspace.
Spacex performed another test in March. This time, the super heavy reinforcement separated successfully was caught For the launch tower in Texas for the third time. The spacecraft reached the space, but eight minutes from the flight, the ship lost multiple Raptor engines and started spiral.
As a result of the two explosions, FAA expanded the size of danger areas in the United States and other countries for flight based on an updated security analysis provided by Spacex. After completing an investigation into the loss of the spacecraft in its eighth flight test, Spacex made several hardware changes to increase reliability.