Starbase was officially formed earlier this month after Elon Musk's aerospace and defense contractor prevailed in a local election

After back-to-back Starship upper stage failures, SpaceX on Tuesday again launched the world's most powerful rocket, but faced new problems.

The consecutive failures may have decreased the likelihood SpaceX can meet NASA’s goal of landing on the moon in 2027, experts said.

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.

The largest, most powerful launch vehicle ever built is meant to be a key part of SpaceX’s plans to send humans to Mars—and NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon, too

Get live updates on the Starship rocket launch from SpaceX's Starbase headquarters in Texas. See what time it launches, where to watch and news on Musk's company.

The spacecraft began spinning as it skimmed space toward an entry in the Indian Ocean. The first-stage booster ended up in the Gulf of Mexico in pieces.

Tuesday will be SpaceX’s ninth launch of Starship, a spacecraft designed to be fully reusable, and is following two previous launches that ended in explosions.

Musk will discuss progress and next steps toward building a human presence on the Red Planet ahead of Starship’s ninth test flight today.

Much was riding on Flight 9 for Elon Musk’s giant moon and Mars rocket after debris from January and March flights fell into the Atlantic Ocean, disrupting air travel.

Starlink is also growing all the time, as this year's statistics show: SpaceX has launched 64 orbital missions so far in 2025 (all of them with the Falcon 9), and 48 of them have been Starlink flights.