Musk again criticized: Starship test flight fails again!

Musk again criticized: Starship test flight fails again!

Indischer Ozean, Indien - The ninth test flight from Elon Musks Starship on May 28, 2025 ended in a new failure. While the rocket reached space, the landing process could not be controlled, which led to the contact with the rocket 46 minutes after the start. Rapid parts of the unsuccessful mission fell into the previously defined danger zone in the Indian Ocean. Despite the failure, Musk expressed optimistic thoughts and emphasized that numerous valuable data were collected. Future test flights are already planned for every three to four weeks.

The costs per start are between $ 50 and $ 100 million. According to Forbes, Musk's company could theoretically finance 5425 more starts with a wealth of $ 406.9 billion. Nevertheless, repeated failure leads to criticism from different directions.

criticism and political concerns

Rolf-Ulrich Kunze, professor of political history, has a sharp criticism of Musk's influence and action. He describes the situation as a "great political scandal" and expresses concerns about Musk's possible influence on political decisions. Kunze proposes regional legal steps to take Musk responsible and sees EU regulations and liability complaints as a possible means to counter the influence of the entrepreneur.

Musk's ambitions go beyond space travel. Using SpaceX, he pursues the goal of making humanity a multiplanetarian society. This includes not only the development of Mars, but also the development of the Starship, a rocket that can transport more than 100 tons of payload. SpaceX is known for its milestones, which extend through the foundation in 2002 to the development of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.

A look at the history of SpaceX

From the first unsuccessful attempts with Falcon 1 in 2006 to the successful flights, which catapulted SpaceX to the top of the private space travel, the company has always focused on innovation. The first successful Falcon 1 mission took place in 2008. SpaceX also received a large order from NASA, which led to the development of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. The Falcon Heavy is considered the strongest rocket in the world while the spaceship dragon freight promotes and brings back to the ISS.

SpaceX not only revolutionized the manned space travel-the first manned flight took place in 2020-but also launched modern projects such as the Starlink program. Nevertheless, the company is regularly exposed to criticism in terms of environmental protection and the question of space scrap.

While SpaceX is preparing for future moon missions in the second half of the 2020s, Musk's procedure remains a hot topic of discussion, both in terms of his companies and the associated political and social challenges.