SpaceX's Starship rocket roared into space from Texas on Tuesday but spun out of control about halfway through its flight without achieving some of its most important testing goals, bringing fresh engineering hurdles to CEO Elon Musk's increasingly turbulent Mars rocket program.

SpaceX hoped to release a series of mock satellites following liftoff, but that got nixed after the door failed to open all the way. Then the spacecraft began spinning toward an uncontrolled landing.

Elon Musk noted in a post on X it was a “big improvement” from the two previous demos, which ended in flaming debris over the Atlantic.