Flight 9 wasn't a success, but it wasn't an outright failure. Superheavy becomes the second rocket design to reuse a propulsively landed booster, and while the booster wasn't expected to fly again it did complete its mission. The Starship upper stage became the first V2 to reach its planned orbit, but unfortunately lost attitude control due to propellent leaks and the door to the starlink deployment system failed to open.

Instead we watched in real time as the spacecraft tumbled through reentry to its destruction.