United States - March 06, 2025 South Texas - SpaceX launched its eighth Starship test flight from Starbase yesterday, and it was a wild ride. The 403-foot-tall rocket blasted off at 6:30 p.m. EST, thrilling onlookers. Just seven minutes later, the massive Super Heavy booster pulled off a jaw-dropping return. The launch tower’s “chopstick” arms snagged it mid-air, marking SpaceX’s third epic catch. But the excitement didn’t last. The 171-foot-tall upper stage, known simply as “Ship,” soared southeast toward the Atlantic. The plan? Deploy four dummy Starlink satellites 17.5 minutes in, then splash down in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia after 50 minutes. It didn’t go that way. Several of Ship’s six Raptor engines failed late in the ascent. The craft tumbled, and SpaceX lost contact nine minutes into the flight. It likely blew up high above. This echoes Flight 7 on Jan. 16. Back then, Super Heavy nailed the chopstick catch too, but Ship vanished at a similar stage. “Obviously a lot to go through, a lot to dig through, and we’re going right at it,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said during the live broadcast. “We have some more to learn about this vehicle.” Starship’s eighth outing, much like its seventh, was a mix of triumph and trouble. SpaceX keeps pushing the boundaries, but that upper stage? Still a headache.