SpaceX’s new spaceship spirals and breaks apart before crashing into Indian ocean

The latest SpaceX Starship test flight has been a bittersweet experience. It was the ninth flight test for the craft so far and, though it ended in shambles, the launch showed the vehicle could successfully reach Earth's orbit.

At that point, an apparent propellant leak caused a loss of altitude and the spacecraft began spinning, leaving mission control unable to intervene, per ABC News. Subsequently, the craft broke apart as it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, with the debris landing in the Indian Ocean.

The craft earlier had a smooth liftoff from Vandenburg Space Force Base in California on May 27, and the event was live streamed.

SpaceX Starship’s Tests

The purpose of these test flights is to ensure that SpaceX is able to extract the best possible results from the constantly evolving project. SpaceX live-tweeted from their official X account during the stream of the Starship test. In a post dated May 28, 2025, they stated:

“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly. Teams will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test. With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary”

This would seem like a step in the right direction for Starship as the previous two tests ended in calamitous fashion. A People report cited the SpaceX website while analyzing the last two attempts. The seventh test flight back in January ended in an explosion. Flight Eight launched on March 6 from SpaceX's Starbase manufacturing and test facility on the southern tip of Texas.

A rocket explosion had such far-reaching consequences that several planes had to be grounded at multiple Florida airports. Space launch debris affected flights from Miami International Airport and Fort Lauderdaleamongst other smaller domestic airports in the area, according to CNN.

In response to this severe inconvenience, SpaceX posted an update on their official website in terms of their future plans for Starship, stating:

“After completing the investigation into the loss of Starship on its eighth flight test, several hardware changes have been made to increase reliability.”

SpaceX added on their website:

“(But) by putting hardware in a flight environment as frequently as possible, we’re able to quickly learn and execute design changes as we seek to bring Starship online as a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle.”

The goal of the SpaceX project is to fulfil Elon Musk’s commitment of being able to send humans to Mars by 2026.

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