SpaceX Readies IFT-9 Starship Test Flight, Explains IFT-8 Failure

SpaceX Readies IFT-9 Starship Test Flight, Explains IFT-8 Failure

By Marcia Smith | Posted: May 23, 2025 3:05 pm ET | Last Updated: May 23, 2025 3:05 pm ET

SpaceX said today it plans to launch the ninth Starship Integrated Flight Test, IFT-9, on Tuesday, May 27.  The flight follows two successive failures of the Starship second stage. Both exploded over the Caribbean leading the FAA to expand the hazard warning area for this flight. SpaceX also is reflying a Super Heavy first stage for the first time. They plan to conduct several flight experiments and will direct it to splash down in the Gulf rather than returning to the launch pad. No “catch” this time.

IFT-9 will lift off from SpaceX’s launch site in Starbase, the newest city in Texas. SpaceX has been calling its facilities near Boca Chica “Starbase” for years while trying to get official approval from the State of Texas and Cameron Country to incorporate itself as a city. On May 3 local residents in that precinct, most SpaceX employees, voted in favor and Starbase was incorporated on May 20.

The IFT-9 launch window opens at 6:30 pm Central Time (7:30 pm Eastern). SpaceX will webcast the launch beginning 30 minutes before liftoff.


The FAA approved SpaceX’s license application yesterday after reviewing SpaceX’s analysis of what went wrong on IFT-8.

Starship on the launch pad prior to its first flight in April 2023. The silver lower stage is the booster, Super Heavy. The upper stage, Starship, is covered in black thermal protection tiles. The combination is also often called Starship, but the name really applies only to the second stage. Photo credit: SpaceX

The FAA regulates commercial space launches and reentries to protect public safety. Because of the IFT-7 and IFT-8 Starship failures on January 16 and March 6 over the Caribbean, plus SpaceX reusing a Super Heavy first stage for the first time, the FAA expanded the Aircraft Hazard Area (AHA) to cover 1,600 nautical miles (1,840 statute miles or 2,960 kilometers). The AHA starts at Starbase and goes eastward through the Straits of Florida over the Bahamas to the Turks & Caicos Islands.

The hazard area is almost twice that for IFT-8. That will impact many more aircraft flights so the FAA also required SpaceX to schedule the launch during non-peak travel hours.

Today SpaceX also released the results of its investigation into the IFT-8 failure stressing it was “distinctly different” from IFT-7.  IFT-7 suffered an “energetic event” in Starship’s aft section due to propellant leaks caused by a harmonic response much stronger than expected. They made a number of changes and SpaceX said today the modifications “worked as designed” on IFT-8.

The problem on IFT-8 was a hardware failure in one of Starship’s center Raptor engines “that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition.” It exploded and disintegrated over the Bahamas and West Indies.


Starship has six Raptor engines. SpaceX said they now will “receive additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system.” SpaceX did a static fire of the Starship engines on May 13.

SpaceX has wowed the world by returning the Super Heavy first stage to the launch pad and “catching” it three times: IFT-5, IFT-7 and IFT-8.  SpaceX plans to reuse the boosters over and over again as they do with their smaller Falcon rockets.

They will reuse the booster from IFT-7 this time and conduct “several flight experiments to gather real-world performance data on future flight profiles and off-nominal scenarios.”  For safety reasons, they decided not to try and bring it back to Starbase, but will direct it to splashdown in the Gulf instead.

Starship is SpaceX’s future and not just for launching satellites into Earth orbit. NASA contracted with SpaceX to build a Human Landing System (HLS) version to ferry astronauts from lunar orbit down to and back from the lunar surface. The first NASA landing mission, Artemis III, is scheduled for mid-2027 and SpaceX is required to launch an uncrewed test flight before that.

SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk also plans to use Starship to send millions of people to Mars to make humanity a multi-planet species, an idea that stirred President Trump’s enthusiasm. Trump’s FY2026 “skinny” budget request for NASA allocates $1 billion to Mars-focused human spaceflight programs, while cutting the overall NASA budget by $6 billion, almost 25 percent, with deep reductions to all other NASA programs and activities including science, technology, aeronautics, and mission services.

With Artemis III just two years away and high-level attention on getting humans to Mars, Starship’s performance on Tuesday will attract a lot of attention whatever the outcome.

Musk’s test flight philosophy is: “Fly. Learn. Repeat.”  He’ll be able to do that more often now.  In addition to issuing the license for this launch, the FAA also approved Musk’s request to increase the cadence of launches and landings at Starbase. He can now do 25 a year — that’s 25 Super Heavy/Starship launches, 25 Super Heavy landings, and 25 Starship landings.

Last Updated: May 23, 2025 3:05 pm ET

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