Musk's SpaceX delays Starship launch to address issues with rocket

By Loren Grush and Sana Pashankar

 

Elon Musk’s SpaceX postponed the eighth test flight of its mammoth Starship rocket on Monday seconds before liftoff in order to troubleshoot issues with the spacecraft. 

 

Starship was slated to launch from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in south Texas on a roughly one-hour mission. The company aimed to repeat the midair catch of the Super Heavy booster it achieved during prior flights and test Starship’s ability to deploy satellites into space. 

 

Musk, in a post on X, said the company will inspect the rocket and try to launch again in the next couple of days. 

 

SpaceX didn’t immediately explain what issues prompted the delay, but the livestream hosts mentioned that engineers were working on issues with both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft leading up to the called-off launch attempt.

 

Starship is the most powerful rocket ever built and key to Musk’s dream of sending humans and cargo to the moon and Mars. SpaceX has been periodically launching Starship on a series of test flights since 2023, with the goal of upgrading the rocket’s capabilities each time.

 

Separately on Monday, SpaceX said it is targeting late 2025 for the first launch of Starship from Florida, pending regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. SpaceX has been building out a launch site for Starship at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, and has sought approval to launch Starship there up to 44 times a year.  

 

Like previous missions, the intention on Monday was for the upper portion of Starship to go on a partial lap around the Earth before splashing down in a controlled landing roughly an hour later in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Australia. 

 

SpaceX is looking to bounce back after its unexpected setback on Jan. 16, when Starship exploded above Turks and Caicos just eight and a half minutes after launching. The mishap marked one of the rocket’s shortest flights yet and forced commercial flights in the area to divert due to debris streaking through the sky. 

 

The FAA cleared Starship to return to flight last week, although the agency is still investigating the explosion. SpaceX has blamed the incident on intense vibrations that exacerbated a propellant leak. The company says several hardware and operational changes have been made to increase the rocket’s reliability.