IFT-9 Is Another RUD for Starship, But An Improvement

IFT-9 Is Another RUD for Starship, But An Improvement

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 27, 2025 11:35 pm ET | Last Updated: May 27, 2025 11:57 pm ET

Starship’s ninth Integrated Flight Test (IFT-9) did not go as planned, but it got further than the last two attempts.  IFT-7 and IFT-8 exploded over the Caribbean.  IFT-9 made it past that milestone, but then experienced fuel leaks on its way over to the Indian Ocean and began spinning. SpaceX lost contact and it broke apart — another Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly or RUD. Reuse of a Super Heavy booster for the first time was mostly a success, however.

Starship lifted off from Starbase, Texas at 7:36 pm ET using the same Super Heavy booster that launched IFT-7 in January. Reusability is SpaceX’s watchword and it plans to reuse Super Heavy boosters the same way it does Falcon 9s.

Super Heavy (“booster”) is the first stage that launches the second stage, Starship (“ship”), onto a suborbital trajectory during these tests and will someday send it into orbit and further into space.

SpaceX has wowed the world by bringing the booster back to the launch pad and “catching” it, but that was not the plan today. They were conducting tests with this reused booster and didn’t want to risk bringing it back and possibly damaging the pad. The booster was, however, supposed to make a soft splashdown in the Gulf. Instead they lost contact as the booster’s engines ignited for the landing burn and it “demised” in the parlance of the SpaceX webcast commentators.

Starship continued on its way and initially everything looked good. It successfully passed over the Caribbean where IFT-7 and IFT-8 exploded on January 16 and March 6, but the joy was short-lived.

The first sign of trouble came when Starship’s payload door failed to open so eight simulated Starlink satellites could be ejected.

Soon thereafter, about 30 minutes into the flight, live video showed the vehicle was spinning. SpaceX commentator Dan Huot reported the ship had experienced a fuel leak, lost attitude control, and they wouldn’t be able to restart one of the six Raptor engines as planned.  SpaceX then decided to passivate the vehicle by venting the fuel overboard as a safety measure. That meant they couldn’t have a controlled splashdown and soon lost contact at an altitude of about 59 kilometers (36.6 miles) as the vehicle broke apart. Huot stressed it stayed within the predetermined reentry zone.

SpaceX called it a RUD.


SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk remained upbeat, posting that it was a “big improvement over last flight” and they’ll be accelerating the launch cadence for the next three test flights with one every three to four weeks.  The FAA recently approved SpaceX’s request to increase the number of launches and landings at Starbase to 25 per year.

The FAA said it is “actively working” with SpaceX and there are “no reports of public injury or damage to public property at this time.”  The FAA regulates commercial launches and reentries to protect public safety.

Musk was scheduled to give a talk at lunchtime today about Starship, Mars, and making life a multiplanetary species, but at the last minute postponed it until after the launch.


SpaceX posted a time of 9:00 pm ET.  But it didn’t take place and no new date has been announced.  Musk did gave a few interviews today including with Eric Berger from Ars Technica and Tim Dodd, the “Everyday Astronaut.”

Starship is SpaceX’s future, not just for launching satellites to Earth orbit, but for sending astronauts to the Moon and Mars. SpaceX is under contract to NASA to provide a Human Landing System (HLS) version of Starship for the first two missions that will return U.S. astronauts to the Moon. The first, Artemis III, is just two years from now, adding urgency to the need to get Starship flying successfully. Musk’s own passion is sending millions of people to Mars to create a multiplanetary species to ensure humanity can survive if anything happens to Earth. That also requires Starship.

In his interviews, Musk complained NASA’s Artemis goals aren’t bold enough, calling them “feeble.”  He told Dodd “we should either do a base on the Moon or send people to Mars, not just try to do the same thing they did 56 years ago” with the Apollo 11 landing. The comment is perplexing since the long-stated goal of the Artemis program is sustained human presence on the Moon. NASA goes out of its way to stress Artemis is not a repeat of Apollo — they are going back “this time to stay” with commercial and international partners.

The future of Artemis is in question right now because Musk wants to shift the focus to Mars. He has the backing of President Trump whose FY2026 NASA budget proposal would allocate $1 billion for “new investments for Mars-focused programs” in human exploration, while making deep cuts to NASA’s other programs — a $6 billion reduction, or 24.3 percent.

For NASA, however, and its supporters in Congress, the Moon is a necessary steppingstone, one that includes “long-term presence.”

“We will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon. Then, we will use what we learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.” — NASA

Last Updated: May 27, 2025 11:57 pm ET

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