SpaceX Just Made The Same Mistake Twice With Starship flight 9, Elon Musk Is...

SpaceX Just Made The Same Mistake Twice With Starship flight 9, Elon Musk Is...
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SpaceX Just Made The Same Mistake Twice With Starship flight 9, Elon Musk Is...
SpaceX’s Starship Flight 9 launched with sky-high expectations, but ultimately, it crashed and burned, literally mirroring what exactly happened with Flight 3 over a year ago.
Both missions saw boosters explode and the Starship upper stage spin out of control during reentry, missing critical milestones like payload deployment and controlled landings.
Despite SpaceX’s bold strides in rocket reusability, why are we seeing these catastrophic setbacks resurface?
Let’s break it down in today’s episode of Alpha Tech.
SpaceX Just Made The Same Mistake Twice With Starship flight 9, Elon Musk Is...
To be honest, when we take a closer look at the process and outcome of Flight 9, it gives us an odd sense of déjà vu.
It feels almost identical to what happened during Flight 3, the test flight that took place in March last year, using Booster 10 and Ship 28.
And just like Booster 14 and Ship 35 in Flight 9, that mission ended with the booster exploding as it attempted to land in the Gulf of America, while the upper stage lost attitude control and was destroyed over the Indian Ocean.
But that’s not all, there are a few more interesting similarities between these two flights that I’m really excited to explore.
Now, let’s rewind a bit and take another look at Starship Flight 3, starting with Booster 10.
SpaceX Just Made The Same Mistake Twice With Starship flight 9, Elon Musk Is...
Just like Flight 9, this mission kicked off with a clean liftoff. All 33 Raptor engines fired up and pushed the rocket off the launch pad at Starbase. After a smooth boost phase, at 2 minutes and 44 seconds into flight, the upper stage ignited in a hot-staging maneuver, allowing both stages to separate cleanly. The energy from that maneuver sent the booster into a controlled 180-degree flip, turning its engines back toward Earth to prep for the boostback burn. And this is where things actually looked pretty promising, all 13 center Raptor engines successfully re-lit and slowed the booster as it began falling back toward the Gulf.
But just when things seemed on track, Booster 10 suddenly ran into serious trouble. It came hurtling down like a massive steel dart straight from space. As it tore through the upper atmosphere at over 1,000 km/h, the first signs of trouble popped up. The onboard cam gave us a close-up of one of the four grid fins, and you could see it struggling big time, working overtime just to keep the rocket steady as it started to wobble and roll uncontrollably.
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