Starship 's two stages separated as planned on Flight 9, and the upper stage even reached space, which was an improvement over the giant vehicle's most recent two flights. But SpaceX ended up losing both stages before they could accomplish their full flight goals.

After the last two test flights ended prematurely with the destruction of the spacecraft, Tuesday's Starship launch demonstrated that the vehicle could successfully reach orbit. However, an apparent propellant leak after the craft entered its suborbital trajectory caused a loss of attitude control,

The Starship super heavy-lift launch vehicle blasted off from SpaceX's Starbase in Texas for its ninth test flight. During its seventh and eight flights, the Starship exploded just a few minutes after launch.

The day after losing another Starship during a test launch, SpaceX was back to its normal routine with a Falcon 9 launch from the Space Coast on Wednesday.

The ninth flight test of SpaceX's Starship megarocket is scheduled for later today, with an hour-long launch window opening at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT). A livestream of Starship Flight Test 9 will be available on the Space.com homepage and YouTube channel, as well as on SpaceX's Flight 9 mission page, the @SpaceX X account and X TV app.