The second prototype of the reusable SpaceX Starship launch vehicle crashed on landing.

Starship SN9 took off at approximately 20: 25 a.m. Greenwich from the SpaceX test site in Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX planned to launch the spacecraft to an altitude of about 10 kilometers, and then land it on a pad at the test site.

According to a comment in the SpaceX webcast by the company's engineer John Insprucker, the takeoff and ascent of the ship went as expected. The vehicle reached the 10-kilometer mark four minutes after takeoff and, after a brief hover, flipped into a horizontal position to return to the landing pad.

As the ship neared the landing pad, it flipped to an upright position and turned on its engines. However, only one of the three Raptor engines turned on and the ship collided with the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees. 6 minutes and 26 seconds have passed since the start.

The flight was almost identical to the Starship SN8 flight on December 9, 2020. It made a mostly successful flight until the moment of landing, when the engine failed to turn on and the ship met the pad too quickly. However, on that flight, the ship was in the correct vertical orientation for landing, not at an angle as when attempting to land the SN9.

"We had a great flight again to 10 kilometers altitude," Insprucker said during a webcast after the crash.

"And again, we just need to work a little bit on the landing," he added, stressing that the launch was a test.

Depending on the results of the SN9 crash analysis, SpaceX could move quickly forward in the overall Starship test program.

The next prototype, the SN10, arrived at the test site on January 29, 2021. Insprucker said that the SN10 is preparing for "a similar flight later this month."