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SpaceX\u2019s Starship spiraled out of control while in space during a test flight on Thursday, marking the second launch in a row<\/a> that the vehicle\u00a0has run into a fatal problem on its way to orbit. <\/p>\n The company launched Starship using its Super Heavy booster and things looked normal for the first eight minutes of the flight prior to the problem. The ship successfully separated and headed into space, while the booster came back to the company\u2019s launchpad in Texas, where it was caught for a third time by the launch tower. <\/p>\n But at around eight minutes and nine seconds into the flight, SpaceX\u2019s broadcast graphics showed Starship lose multiple Raptor engines on the vehicle. On-board footage showed the ship started spiraling end over end over the ocean.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just saw some engines go out, it looks like we are losing attitude control of the ship,\u201d SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the broadcast. \u201cAt this point we have lost contact with the ship.\u201d <\/p>\n Footage<\/a> posted to social media showed the ship breaking up over the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic a few minutes later<\/a>.<\/p>\n SpaceX was hoping to deploy four dummy versions of its Starlink satellites during the test flight, a step towards the goal of using Starship for commercial missions.<\/p>\n SpaceX is purposely developing Starship by doing test flights like these, and learning from the things that go both right and wrong. But Thursday\u2019s failure comes just a few weeks after the seventh test flight<\/a>, which saw Starship break up in spectacular fashion over the islands of Turks & Caicos, which caused the FAA to divert a number of flights in that airspace.<\/p>\n