Spacex presents its next 💥9th starship 🚀 SUBORBITAL test flight WITHOUT SURVIVABLE landing for the booster or upper stage Tuesday, May 27. The launch window will open at 6:30 p.m. CT. The SpaceX Starship both super heavy booster and upper stage set on achieving minimal suborbital tasks where the super heavy booster “plans” to crash in a hard 💥splashdown in the Gulf and “will not return to the launch site for catch” and the upper stage plans a suborbital trajectory in attempts of minimizing embarrassing 💥🚀rapid disassembly risks. suborbital trajectories typically reach altitudes between 100–230 km A lot of work was put in fixing problems that led to previous 💥rapid disassembly and this time spacex elegantly describes planned 💥Starship destruction in hard splashdown and Inability to land at the launched stage 🚀 pad as planned “To maximize the safety of launch infrastructure at Starbase” negating its own concept of “reusability “

No Reentry Burn for Suborbital Flights

Suborbital flights don’t achieve the velocity needed for a stable orbit (around 7.8 km/s for low Earth orbit). Instead, they follow a ballistic trajectory, peaking at high altitudes but returning to Earth without completing an orbit

For suborbital trajectories, the upper stage does not typically perform a reentry burn because the speeds (e.g., 7–8 km/s) are lower than orbital velocities (27,000 km/h).

Reentry begins at the Kármán line (100 km), where atmospheric drag becomes significant. Starship’s reentry phase involves hypersonic speeds, with peak heating occurring around 65–80 km.

Reentry reliability remains a hurdle. For example, IFT-3 lost Ship 28 at 65 km due to clogged roll control valves, highlighting the lack in a need for robust attitude control. SpaceX has since added redundant thrusters for upcoming flights

What’s planned

the Super Heavy booster will attempt first ever reflight, but “plans” to crash in a hard 💥splashdown in the Gulf of America and “will not return to the launch site for catch”

The Starship upper stage will again target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites.

The Starlink simulators payload deployment by the upper stage will be on the same page suborbital trajectory as as Starship upper stage and are expected to “demise upon entry”