SpaceX canceled the test flight of its Starship rocket shortly before launch due to an unspecified issue. The flight, intended to take place from Boca Chica, Texas, was set for 6:45 PM but has yet to be rescheduled. This would have been Starship’s eighth orbital mission following a previous flight’s explosion. Standing 403 feet tall, Starship is crucial for SpaceX’s plans for Mars colonization and NASA’s Artemis program. Despite regulatory scrutiny from the FAA due to safety concerns, SpaceX has upgraded the rocket for reliability. The mission aims to enhance reusability and includes trials with Starlink technology.
Washington, United States:
SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, canceled its latest test flight of the Starship rocket just moments before its planned launch on Monday, citing an unreported issue with the massive spacecraft.
“We are standing down from today’s flight test attempt,” SpaceX announced on X, which is also owned by Musk. “The Starship team is working on identifying the next best opportunity to launch.”
Standing down from today’s flight test attempt. Starship team is determining the next best available opportunity to fly
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 3, 2025
The most powerful rocket in the world was scheduled to lift off without any crew at 6:45 pm (2345 GMT) from SpaceX’s Starbase site in Boca Chica, Texas.
No new launch date has been shared, although SpaceX employee Dan Huot mentioned it could be “around 24 hours” during a live stream of the event.
This flight would mark Starship’s eighth orbital mission and its first return to flight since a spectacular mid-air explosion over the Caribbean during its last test.
At 403 feet (123 meters) tall—about 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty—Starship is intended to be fully reusable and is central to Musk and SpaceX’s ambitions to colonize Mars.
Meanwhile, NASA is anticipating a modified version of the rocket for its Artemis program, which aims to bring astronauts back to the Moon.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had grounded Starship after its previous flight on January 16 ended with the upper stage breaking apart over the Turks and Caicos Islands, leading to debris cleanup efforts.
On Friday, the FAA announced that Starship might return to flight prior to the completion of its review of SpaceX’s “mishap investigation.”
During Joe Biden’s administration, Musk often criticized the FAA for being overly strict about SpaceX’s safety and environmental issues.
As one of President Donald Trump’s closest advisors, Musk, now the world’s richest person, faces accusations of exerting undue influence over regulatory agencies that supervise his businesses.
For the upcoming launch, SpaceX claims to have implemented numerous upgrades to the upper-stage spacecraft to boost reliability and performance.
The mission, anticipated to last just over an hour, will include another attempt to catch the booster stage using the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms—a maneuver SpaceX successfully performed twice, including on the last flight.
Additionally, the company will deploy Starlink simulators that are meant to replicate next-generation Starlink satellites, which will disintegrate upon re-entering the atmosphere.
In the future, SpaceX aims to recover the upper stage as well, but for now, the focus is on an ocean splashdown off the west coast of Australia, similar to past missions.
In a recent episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, Musk stated that the biggest challenge for achieving the rocket’s complete reusability lies in the heat shield.
“We need to solve the creation of a fully reusable orbital heat shield—a problem that has yet to be solved,” Musk explained.
He believes Starship is “pretty close to achieving full and rapid reusability of the booster,” outlining a goal for the entire stack’s reusability—rocket and booster combined—next year.
Before realizing Starship’s ambitious exploration objectives, SpaceX must demonstrate that the rocket is safe and suitable for crewed missions.
The company also needs to show that complex in-orbit refueling using other Starships as fuel tankers can be accomplished to enable long-distance space travel.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)