Elon Musk’s SpaceX launches Starship but loses control mid-flight within 30 minutes, crashes into Indian Ocean | Watch video |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

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In a groundbreaking move for aerospace engineering, SpaceX launched the ninth integrated test flight of its Starship Super Heavy system from Starbase in South Texas on Tuesday evening. Unlike previous missions aimed at precision landings, this flight intentionally ended in a powerful splashdown. The goal was to gather critical data on the rocket’s structural limits and boost progress toward full reusability. This dramatic crash was a calculated experiment, marking a pivotal step in SpaceX’s mission to create reliable, reusable launch systems for future space exploration, including routine missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.

SpaceX Starship lost control in mid-flight causing mission to end with ocean crash

At 7:36 p.m. EDT (2336 GMT), the completely integrated Starship launch vehicle — consisting of the upper-stage Starship spacecraft riding on top of the Super Heavy booster — departed from SpaceX’s Starbase complex on the Gulf Coast near Brownsville, Texas.The launch was live-streamed on SpaceX’s webcast, with observers seeing the rocket rise into the evening sky. The firing of Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines created a powerful plume of fire, exhaust, and water vapor, marking another milestone in the company’s long-term build-out of fully reusable spaceflight systems.For the first time, a previously launched Super Heavy booster powered a Starship flight — an important step toward SpaceX’s larger goal of routine, reusable spaceflight. This specific booster had been upgraded since its previous mission and was being asked to prove it could withstand repeated launches and touchdowns.A few minutes into flight, the first-stage booster broke away from the upper-stage Starship vehicle as anticipated. But SpaceX lost communication with the booster during descent, and it’s thought to have crashed into the ocean instead of executing the controlled splashdown SpaceX had intended. This kept engineers from capturing the full range of descent and landing data, though initial flight data will still be helpful.