SpaceX called off the planned 10th test flight of its Starship megarocket for the second day in a row on Monday (Aug. 25), this time because Mother Nature wouldn’t cooperate.
SpaceX originally aimed to launch Starship Flight 10 from its Starbase site in South Texas on Sunday evening, during an hourlong window that opened at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT), but was thwarted by an issue with ground systems. The company tried again today during the same window but had to scrub again, because anvil-shaped clouds failed to clear the area. Such clouds pose an unacceptable risk of lightning, which could kill a launch in the cradle.
“Launch called off for tonight due to anvil clouds over launch site (lightning risk),” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on social media after the launch scrub. Musk was onhand for the launch attempt and gave an overview of Starship during live commentary.
“Standing down from today’s flight test attempt due to weather. Starship team is determining the next best available opportunity to fly,” SpaceX said via X on Monday evening.
The next possible chance is Tuesday evening, during the same hourlong window. Whenever Starship flies again, you’ll be able to watch the action here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX.
“We do have a phenomenal logistics team, so we should hopefully be able to replenish prop everything,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during live commentary, using an abbreviation for the propellant used to launch Starship. “We don’t have to refill all the water tanks because we didn’t fire off the deflector, but we’ll have to reload the prop.”
SpaceX is developing Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — to help humanity settle the moon and Mars, among other ambitious exploration feats.
The vehicle consists of two elements — a huge booster called Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft known as Starship, or simply Ship. Both stages are made of stainless steel and are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.
Starship flew for the first time in April 2023 and now has nine test missions under its belt. Three of those launches occurred this year, in January, March and May.
Ship had problems on all three occasions. On both Flight 7 and Flight 8 , the 171-foot-tall (52 meters) spacecraft exploded less than 10 minutes after launch. Ship flew for much longer on Flight 9 but ended up losing its attitude control and broke apart in Earth’s atmosphere during reentry.
If all goes according to plan on Flight 10, Super Heavy will perform several in-flight experiments and then guide itself to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff.
Ship, meanwhile, will aim to deploy eight dummy versions of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, relight one of its six Raptor engines in space, and come down in the Indian Ocean about 66 minutes post-launch.