Elon Musk’s SpaceX has postponed the planned test flight of its Starship megarocket due to technical issues at the launch site.
The rocket company announced that it was abandoning its 10th test flight to “allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems” about 30 minutes before the planned liftoff at its Texas launch facility on Sunday.
This latest setback adds to a series of botched missions by SpaceX, including test flights of the rocket’s upper stage in January, March, and May that ended in mid-flight explosions.
A “static fire” test in June also resulted in the vehicle exploding on the launchpad. Despite these challenges, SpaceX is working towards making the Starship fully reusable, a crucial step towards its goal of colonizing Mars and NASA’s planned crewed missions to the Moon.
If the Starship’s 10th test flight eventually succeeds, SpaceX will still face significant technical hurdles. These include making the system fully and rapidly reusable at low cost and proving it can refuel super-cooled propellant in orbit.
The 403-feet spacecraft is key to Musk’s ambitious goals, and NASA plans to use a customized version of the vehicle for its planned crewed missions to the Moon.
In previous test flights, the Starship upper stage has experienced significant issues, including explosions and loss of control.
The most recent incident involved Ship 36, which exploded during a ground test in Texas, highlighting the challenges SpaceX faces in developing a reliable and reusable rocket system.
SpaceX has completed an investigation into the recent Starship failures, tracing the root cause to a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) used to store nitrogen in the Starship’s payload bay.
The failure was caused by “undetectable or under-screened damage” to the COPV, which compromised the vehicle’s structure and led to the propellant leak and subsequent explosion. The FAA has closed its investigation and given the green light for the Starship Flight 10 launch.
SpaceX is pushing ahead with its ambitious program, with plans to launch Starship Flight 10 and Flight 11 as the final two tests of the giant rocket’s current design generation.
These tests aim to expand the vehicle’s capabilities and iterate towards fully and rapidly reusable rockets. The company is also working on redesigning the grid fins for future Super Heavy boosters to aid in descent trajectories.