Starship 's two stages separated as planned on Flight 9, and the upper stage even reached space, which was an improvement over the giant vehicle's most recent two flights. But SpaceX ended up losing both stages before they could accomplish their full flight goals.

The Starship super heavy-lift launch vehicle blasted off from SpaceX's Starbase in Texas for its ninth test flight. During its seventh and eight flights, the Starship exploded just a few minutes after launch.

SpaceX has made several hardware changes and improvements to the rocket since its last test flight, which was foiled by an engine anomaly.

The Red Planet and Earth align properly for interplanetary missions just once every 26 months. The next such opportunity comes in 2026 between the months of November and December, and SpaceX will try to hit it; the goal is to send five Starship Version 3 vehicles to the Red Planet to prove out the vehicle and its associated tech, Musk said.

In a social media post, SpaceX owner Elon Musk said in spite of the explosive endings, the ninth Starship test flight was a success and one that will help advance development of the program.

While SpaceX has hoped to launch Starship from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A by the end of the year, test flights from Texas make slow progress.