X610-EEUU SPACE X PIERDE CONTROL

STORY: SpaceX's Starship rocket roared into space from Texas on Tuesday (May 27) 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 400-foot tall (122 meter) 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 - a first such demonstration of the booster's reusability.

But SpaceX lost contact with the 232-foot lower-stage booster during its descent before it plunged into the sea, rather than making the controlled splashdown the company had planned.

Starship, meanwhile, continued into suborbital space but began to spin uncontrollably roughly 30 minutes into the mission. The errant spiralling came after SpaceX canceled a plan to deploy eight mock Starlink satellites into space - the rocket's "Pez" candy dispenser-like mechanism failed to work as designed.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

VIDEO SHOWS: NEXT-GEN STARSHIP LAUNCHING ATOP SPACEX'S SUPER HEAVY BOOSTER / STARSHIP IN SPACE / FIRST STAGE RETURNING TO EARTH / SPACEX MISSION CONTROL CENTER

EDITOR'S NOTE: REFILING TO ADD FOOTAGE OF STARSHIP ROCKET LOSING CONTACT WITH SPACEX CONTROL CENTER

SHOWS: STARBASE, TEXAS, UNITED STATES (MAY 27, 2025) (SPACEX - For editorial use only. No resales.)

1. NEXT-GEN STARSHIP LAUNCHING ATOP SPACEX'S SUPER HEAVY BOOSTER

2. ROCKET FLYING TO SPACE

3. ROCKET’S ENGINE

4. ROCKET FLYING TO SPACE

IN SPACE (MAY 27, 2025) (SPACEX - For editorial use only. No resales.)

5. ROCKET IN SPACE

6. SPACESHIP’S ENGINE

UNIDENTIFIED LOCATION (MAY 27, 2025) (SPACEX - For editorial use only. No resales.)

7. FIRST STAGE RETURNING TO EARTH

HAWTHORNE, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (MAY 27, 2025) (SPACEX - For editorial use only. No resales.)