SpaceX’s massive Starship blasted off into the sky on Tuesday night for its ninth test flight following back-to-back failures earlier this year – but the mission faltered in orbit and the ship burned up as it plunged back toward Earth’s atmosphere. 

The 400-foot-tall ship launched from the company’s Starbase facility in Texas just after 7:30 p.m., with the rocket aiming to deploy Starlink satellite simulators, a first for Starship, before a scheduled landing in the Indian Ocean.

But the doomed spacecraft, which took off after a brief delay to resolve technical issues, soon encountered problems in space when Starship couldn’t deploy eight dummy satellites after the payload door failed to open. 

“Obviously this is a test we want to be able to do before we’re deploying full-on Starlinks,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said during a live broadcast. 

“But the real focus for this, now that we are in space, is getting to that reentry that is the most critical phase of Starship that we still have to prove out.”

Huot later announced that SpaceX lost control of the spacecraft as the ship tumbled uncontrollably into the earth’s thick atmosphere during re-entry. It’s unclear where the ship landed or if its still in one piece.

“We are trying to do something that is impossibly hard, and it’s not always going to reach it in a straight line,” Huot said at the end of the live broadcast.

“We said there’s going to be bumps. There’s going to be turns. But seeing that ship in space today was a hell of a moment for us.”

Perfecting the Starship is critical for Elon Musk’s quest to reach Mars next year.

Tuesday’s test also marked the first time that SpaceX reused the Super Heavy booster rocket. The booster had previously been used in January, but unlike previous mission, it wasn’t going to be caught.

The booster rocket was set to splash down in the Gulf of America during Tuesday’s launch but blew up after detaching from the main rocket, according to the broadcast.

The Starship flew the same route as its predecessor, which exploded 10 minutes after take off during SpaceX’s eighth test in March.

Nearly 1 million viewers watched as the spaceship spun out of control and exploded over the Atlantic ocean, causing several Florida airports to ground flights due to “space launch debris.”

A similar incident occurred during the seventh test when Starship experienced a propellant leak during its ascent, causing it to break apart and explode in January.

Despite the failures, both missions saw success in guiding the Super heavy boosters back to the Texas launchpad, where they were caught with the so-called “chopsticks” or “Mechazilla” mechanical arms.

Starship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, saving SpaceX significantly on cost and resources, which would aid the company in reaching its ultimate goal of pioneering travel to the Moon and Mars.