The largest, most powerful launch vehicle ever built is meant to be a key part of SpaceX’s plans to send humans to Mars—and NASA’s plans to return astronauts to the moon, too

After back-to-back Starship upper stage failures, SpaceX on Tuesday again launched the world's most powerful rocket, but faced new problems.

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.