On Tuesday evening, SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft successfully separated from its Super Heavy rocket booster and entered orbit, but subsequently began to spin and made an uncontrolled re-entry into the Indian Ocean. According to the company, SpaceX had cleared the surrounding airspace prior to the spacecraft’s descent.

The ninth test flight of the Starship program yielded a mix of positive and negative outcomes for the company. Following two consecutive explosions, this test flight was the smoothest of the year. The Starship, launched atop the Super Heavy booster, lifted off from SpaceX’s facility in southern Texas on Tuesday evening, marking the first time a flight-proven Super Heavy booster was used, having previously launched and returned during the seventh flight test.

The heavy booster successfully separated from the Starship, allowing it to enter space. However, the spacecraft was unable to open a side cargo hatch to deploy mock satellites as planned. Later in the flight, the Starship experienced a loss of attitude control, rendering it unable to orient itself properly for re-entry.

The ninth flight test occurred less than a week after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) granted SpaceX clearance to conduct the test flight of its Starship rocket system, following the back-to-back explosions that occurred earlier in the year.

In January, SpaceX successfully caught the Starship’s heavy booster rocket on its descent for the second time. Although the Starship separated from the booster and ignited its rockets to ascend to orbit, it was lost shortly after due to an anomaly. Debris from the Starship fell into the airspace near Puerto Rico, prompting the FAA to reroute several aircraft in the area.

SpaceX conducted another test in March, during which the Super Heavy booster successfully separated and was caught by the launch tower in Texas for the third time. The Starship reached space but lost multiple Raptor engines eight minutes into the flight, causing it to spiral out of control.

As a result of the two explosions, the FAA expanded the size of hazard areas in the U.S. and other countries for the flight based on an updated safety analysis provided by SpaceX. Following an investigation into the loss of the Starship on its eighth flight test, SpaceX implemented several hardware changes to increase reliability, which were incorporated into the ninth test flight.