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.
The 122-meter tall Starship rocket system, the core of Musk's goal of sending humans to Mars, lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase, Texas, launch site, flying beyond the point of two previous explosive attempts earlier this year that sent debris streaking over Caribbean islands and forced dozens of airliners to divert course.
For the latest launch, the ninth full test mission of Starship since the first attempt in April 2023, the upper-stage cruise vessel was lofted to space atop a previously flown booster — the first such demonstration of the booster's reusability.
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