Elon Musk's SpaceX Starship rocket spun out of control around halfway through its flight on Tuesday, 27 May, without achieving some of its most important testing goals.
The 400-foot-tall (122-metre) rocket system lifted off from the Texas launch site and flew beyond the point of two previous explosive attempts from earlier in 2025.
Contact was lost with the 232-foot lower-stage booster during its descent before it plunged into the sea instead of a controlled splashdown, rather than making the controlled splashdown the company had planned.
Starship began to spin uncontrollably around 30 minutes into the mission after SpaceX cancelled a plan to deploy eight mock Starlink satellites into space as the rocket's dispenser-like mechanism failed to operate as intended.
