SpaceX lost contact with its Starship rocket on Thursday during the company’s eighth test mission, marking the second consecutive Starship failure of the year and derailing a satellite deployment demonstration, CNBC reported.
The 403-foot rocket system launched at approximately 6:30 p.m. ET from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, facilities, with its Super Heavy first-stage booster performing a successful landing as planned.
However, minutes after the lift-off, the Starship upper stage began to spin uncontrollably in space, as shown on SpaceX’s live stream. Visualizations of the rocket’s engines revealed multiple shutdowns before the company confirmed it had lost communication with the spacecraft.
“Unfortunately this happened last time too so we’ve got some practice now,” SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot remarked during the live stream.
A seventh Starship test flight in January also ended prematurely, just eight minutes into its mission, when the rocket exploded in space, scattering debris over Caribbean islands.
US President Donald Trump joined SpaceX owner Elon Musk to watch the sixth test flight this pat November. The test took place days after Musk was named by Trump as one of the leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy.