The flight plan going into Thursday’s mission referred to as for sending Starship on a journey midway around the globe from Texas, culminating in a managed reentry over the Indian Ocean earlier than splashing down northwest of Australia.

The take a look at flight was purported to be a do-over of the earlier Starship flight on January 16, when the rocket’s higher stage—itself often called Starship, or ship—succumbed to fires fueled by leaking propellants in its engine bay. Engineers decided the almost definitely reason for the propellant leak was a harmonic response a number of instances stronger than predicted, suggesting the vibrations throughout the ship’s climb into house had been in resonance with the car’s pure frequency. This might have intensified the vibrations past the degrees engineers anticipated.

Engineers test-fired the Starship car earlier this month for this week’s take a look at flight, validating modifications to propellant temperatures, working thrust, and the ship’s gasoline feed traces resulting in its six Raptor engines.

However engineers missed one thing. On Thursday, the Raptor engines started shutting down on Starship about eight minutes into the flight, and the rocket began tumbling 90 miles (146 kilometers) over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX floor controllers misplaced all contact with the rocket about nine-and-a-half minutes after liftoff.

“Previous to the top of the ascent burn, an brisk occasion within the aft portion of Starship resulted within the lack of a number of Raptor engines,” SpaceX wrote on X. “This in flip led to a lack of angle management and in the end a lack of communications with Starship.”

Identical to in January, residents and vacationers throughout the Florida peninsula, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands shared movies of fiery particles trails showing within the twilight sky. Air site visitors controllers diverted or delayed dozens of business airline flights flying via the particles footprint, simply as they did in response to the January incident.

There have been no fast studies Thursday of any Starship wreckage falling over populated areas. In January, residents within the Turks and Caicos Islands recovered small particles fragments, together with one piece that induced minor injury when it struck a automobile. The particles subject from Thursday’s failed flight appeared to fall west of the areas the place particles fell after Starship Flight 7.

A spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration mentioned the regulatory company would require SpaceX to carry out an investigation into Thursday’s Starship failure.