SpaceX scrubs 10th flight test of Starship
MATTHEW GLASSER and RILEY HOFFMAN
Mon, August 25, 2025
Eric Gay/AP - PHOTO: SpaceX Starship Launch
The company has yet to successfully complete a mission for the the stainless-steel spacecraft, which is being engineered to be fully reusable and would be able to carry up to 100 people to deep space destinations.
In mid-June, a Starship exploded on the launch pad during a pre-flight engine test.
That explosion occurred less than a month after test flight nine ended prematurely when the "Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly" due to several mechanical failures minutes into the flight, according to SpaceX.
The company also lost the first stage heavy booster during the test after it appeared to explode while splashing down in the Gulf. SpaceX blames "higher than predicted forces on the booster structure" for the loss.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
MATTHEW GLASSER and RILEY HOFFMAN
Mon, August 25, 2025
ABC
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SpaceX announced it was canceling the 10th launch of the Starship moments before the flight was set to begin.
"Standing down from today's tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems," SpaceX said in a statement.
MORE: SpaceX's Starship faces 10th test after previous flights end in explosions
Starship's 10th flight test was scheduled to lift off from SpaceX's Starbase launch site in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas
The company said it is now targeting Monday evening for the launch. The 60-minute launch window opens at 7:30 p.m. ET. The webcast will begin approximately 30 minutes prior to the opening of the launch window.
Scroll back up to restore default view.
SpaceX announced it was canceling the 10th launch of the Starship moments before the flight was set to begin.
"Standing down from today's tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems," SpaceX said in a statement.
MORE: SpaceX's Starship faces 10th test after previous flights end in explosions
Starship's 10th flight test was scheduled to lift off from SpaceX's Starbase launch site in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas
The company said it is now targeting Monday evening for the launch. The 60-minute launch window opens at 7:30 p.m. ET. The webcast will begin approximately 30 minutes prior to the opening of the launch window.
Eric Gay/AP - PHOTO: SpaceX Starship Launch
The company has yet to successfully complete a mission for the the stainless-steel spacecraft, which is being engineered to be fully reusable and would be able to carry up to 100 people to deep space destinations.
In mid-June, a Starship exploded on the launch pad during a pre-flight engine test.
That explosion occurred less than a month after test flight nine ended prematurely when the "Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly" due to several mechanical failures minutes into the flight, according to SpaceX.
The company also lost the first stage heavy booster during the test after it appeared to explode while splashing down in the Gulf. SpaceX blames "higher than predicted forces on the booster structure" for the loss.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
SpaceX scrubs planned Starship launch
Danielle Haynes
Sun, August 24, 2025
SpaceX scrubbed its planned Sunday launch of Starship. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The first stage of the rocket landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
A SpaceX Starship is lifted to mate to the Super Heavy booster on Launch Complex 1. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket creates a shock wave during a launch August 11. The space technology company launched a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday on a resupply mission to the ISS. Photo by Joe Marino/UPIMore
Danielle Haynes
Sun, August 24, 2025
UPI
A SpaceX Starship rocket is prepared for launch on its 10th flight test from Launch Complex 1 at Starbase, Texas, on Sunday. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
Aug. 24 (UPI) -- The SpaceX space technology company scrubbed planned 10th test flight of its heavy-lift Starship launch vehicle Sunday due to technical issues.
Flight 10 was expected to launch around 6:30 p.m. from the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas. It was to be the fourth launch of the year of Starship, the largest rocket on Earth and the successor to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
"Standing down from today's tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems," the company said in a post on X.
The last time SpaceX attempted to test the Starship, Flight 9 in June, it exploded during a preflight procedure on the launch pad. Flight 8, on March 6, lost contact minutes after launch, and Flight 7 exploded shortly after launch.
Earlier Sunday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., loaded with 5,000 pounds cargo for the International Space Station. It was the 50th Dragon capsule mission to the ISS and the 33rd resupply mission to the space station.
A SpaceX Starship rocket is prepared for launch on its 10th flight test from Launch Complex 1 at Starbase, Texas, on Sunday. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
Aug. 24 (UPI) -- The SpaceX space technology company scrubbed planned 10th test flight of its heavy-lift Starship launch vehicle Sunday due to technical issues.
Flight 10 was expected to launch around 6:30 p.m. from the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica, Texas. It was to be the fourth launch of the year of Starship, the largest rocket on Earth and the successor to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
"Standing down from today's tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems," the company said in a post on X.
The last time SpaceX attempted to test the Starship, Flight 9 in June, it exploded during a preflight procedure on the launch pad. Flight 8, on March 6, lost contact minutes after launch, and Flight 7 exploded shortly after launch.
Earlier Sunday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., loaded with 5,000 pounds cargo for the International Space Station. It was the 50th Dragon capsule mission to the ISS and the 33rd resupply mission to the space station.
SpaceX scrubbed its planned Sunday launch of Starship. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The first stage of the rocket landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas.
A SpaceX Starship is lifted to mate to the Super Heavy booster on Launch Complex 1. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket creates a shock wave during a launch August 11. The space technology company launched a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday on a resupply mission to the ISS. Photo by Joe Marino/UPIMore
SpaceX scrubs Starship rocket launch to troubleshoot ‘ground systems’ issue
Richard Luscombe
Sun, August 24, 2025
This undated handout photo provided by SpaceX on Thursday shows the Super Heavy booster moved to the launch pad at Starbase, Texas, ahead of Starship's 10th flight test.Photograph: AP
The launch of Elon Musk’s gargantuan Starship space rocket was scrubbed late Sunday afternoon, with the billionaire entrepreneur’s ambitious timetable for reaching the moon and conquering Mars left hanging in the balance.
SpaceX said it was standing down from the launch to “allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems”, a post on social media read. There was no information on when the launch would be rescheduled.
This was Starship’s 10th launch attempt. Of its nine previous uncrewed outings, dating to April 2023, failures have outnumbered the successes. All three test flights this year ended in huge explosions and debris raining down on Caribbean islands from the Bahamas to the Turks and Caicos in January and March, and the Indian Ocean in May.
Sunday night’s test flight, from SpaceX’s sprawling complex in Starbase, Texas, formerly known as Boca Chica, had various mission objectives, including the first successful deployment of Starlink communications satellite simulators.
Related: Inside Elon Musk’s plan to rain SpaceX’s rocket debris over Hawaii’s pristine waters
Musk had remained uncharacteristically quiet ahead of the mission. “Getting ready to launch Starship,” he posted on Thursday to the X platform he also owns, alongside images of the rocket assembly moving into position. SpaceX has not achieved a safe return landing of the upper stage of Starship, which Musk is hoping to have certified for human spaceflight as early as next year.
SpaceX engineers have made a number of changes following reviews of the rocket’s previous failures, which include “a catastrophic explosion” that destroyed a Starship rocket during a ground test in June. The company is testing a variety of new heat-resistant tiles designed to stand the stresses of re-entry, and aims to return the upper stage to its landing site for the first time.
The entire Starship stack, at 403ft (123 meters), is considerably larger and more powerful than Nasa’s Apollo-era Saturn V rocket that last took humans to the moon in 1972.
Musk’s vision is a fully reusable space vehicle capable of repeated return trips to Mars beginning in late 2026 without astronauts, then with crews making the six-month space voyage as early as 2029. Ultimately, the SpaceX and Tesla founder aims to build a thriving city for humans on the red planet in the coming two to three decades.
Experts say it is a hugely ambitious undertaking. First, Musk needs to prove SpaceX can launch and recover Starship’s components safely from short hops into the atmosphere, to say nothing of a journey to the moon.
Only four Starship launches have been considered successful, although the company has made progress in recovering the first-stage Super Heavy rocket booster by capturing it in a giant pair of robotic arms nicknamed the chopsticks.
SpaceX had said it would not attempt to catch the booster from Sunday’s flight because the component would instead be used for in-flight experiments “to gather real-world performance data on future flight profiles and off-nominal scenarios”.
In the eyes of investors, the mission is also a test of Musk’s commitment to focusing on his core businesses – space and electric vehicles – since leaving his controversial government job as head of the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge) in May. When he left the government, Musk said he would return to his businesses. He has since backtracked on the pledge and said he will start a new political party, though he may already be backing off the initiative.
Ethics watchdogs have questioned Musk’s former role for the White House, in which he slashed tens of thousands of government jobs in the name of efficiency while preserving and benefiting from billions of dollars in federal contracts.
Donald Trump said this month he planned to relax regulations that will allow Musk, and fellow billionaires with space ambitions such as the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, to avoid reviews previously required by the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) before launch permits can be granted.
Sun, August 24, 2025
This undated handout photo provided by SpaceX on Thursday shows the Super Heavy booster moved to the launch pad at Starbase, Texas, ahead of Starship's 10th flight test.Photograph: AP
The launch of Elon Musk’s gargantuan Starship space rocket was scrubbed late Sunday afternoon, with the billionaire entrepreneur’s ambitious timetable for reaching the moon and conquering Mars left hanging in the balance.
SpaceX said it was standing down from the launch to “allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems”, a post on social media read. There was no information on when the launch would be rescheduled.
This was Starship’s 10th launch attempt. Of its nine previous uncrewed outings, dating to April 2023, failures have outnumbered the successes. All three test flights this year ended in huge explosions and debris raining down on Caribbean islands from the Bahamas to the Turks and Caicos in January and March, and the Indian Ocean in May.
Sunday night’s test flight, from SpaceX’s sprawling complex in Starbase, Texas, formerly known as Boca Chica, had various mission objectives, including the first successful deployment of Starlink communications satellite simulators.
Related: Inside Elon Musk’s plan to rain SpaceX’s rocket debris over Hawaii’s pristine waters
Musk had remained uncharacteristically quiet ahead of the mission. “Getting ready to launch Starship,” he posted on Thursday to the X platform he also owns, alongside images of the rocket assembly moving into position. SpaceX has not achieved a safe return landing of the upper stage of Starship, which Musk is hoping to have certified for human spaceflight as early as next year.
SpaceX engineers have made a number of changes following reviews of the rocket’s previous failures, which include “a catastrophic explosion” that destroyed a Starship rocket during a ground test in June. The company is testing a variety of new heat-resistant tiles designed to stand the stresses of re-entry, and aims to return the upper stage to its landing site for the first time.
The entire Starship stack, at 403ft (123 meters), is considerably larger and more powerful than Nasa’s Apollo-era Saturn V rocket that last took humans to the moon in 1972.
Musk’s vision is a fully reusable space vehicle capable of repeated return trips to Mars beginning in late 2026 without astronauts, then with crews making the six-month space voyage as early as 2029. Ultimately, the SpaceX and Tesla founder aims to build a thriving city for humans on the red planet in the coming two to three decades.
Experts say it is a hugely ambitious undertaking. First, Musk needs to prove SpaceX can launch and recover Starship’s components safely from short hops into the atmosphere, to say nothing of a journey to the moon.
Only four Starship launches have been considered successful, although the company has made progress in recovering the first-stage Super Heavy rocket booster by capturing it in a giant pair of robotic arms nicknamed the chopsticks.
SpaceX had said it would not attempt to catch the booster from Sunday’s flight because the component would instead be used for in-flight experiments “to gather real-world performance data on future flight profiles and off-nominal scenarios”.
In the eyes of investors, the mission is also a test of Musk’s commitment to focusing on his core businesses – space and electric vehicles – since leaving his controversial government job as head of the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge) in May. When he left the government, Musk said he would return to his businesses. He has since backtracked on the pledge and said he will start a new political party, though he may already be backing off the initiative.
Ethics watchdogs have questioned Musk’s former role for the White House, in which he slashed tens of thousands of government jobs in the name of efficiency while preserving and benefiting from billions of dollars in federal contracts.
Donald Trump said this month he planned to relax regulations that will allow Musk, and fellow billionaires with space ambitions such as the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, to avoid reviews previously required by the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) before launch permits can be granted.
SpaceX Is Losing a Staggering Amount of Money Every Time One of Its Starships Explodes
Victor Tangermann
Sat, August 23, 2025
Time is ticking for SpaceX's Starship.
Even after nearly ten launches, the behemoth spacecraft has yet to successfully visit space and then come safely back to Earth even a single time — but NASA is nonetheless relying on it to ferry astronauts from the Moon's orbit down to the surface just over two years from now.
Given Starship's track record so far — nine full-scale test flights have ended in explosions shortly after launch, explosions in space, and crashes into the ocean — it's a steep goal.
The company is preparing for its tenth test flight on Sunday evening, once again attempting to get the rocket's booster off the ground and back in one piece. In theory, according to SpaceX, during the flight, Starship will "target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators."
It's been an arduous couple of years, riddled with successes and even more setbacks, which have cost the private space company an enormous amount of money.
It's also not cheap. As insider sources told Bloomberg in new reporting, each Starship prototype costs hundreds of millions of dollars to build, highlighting the astronomical costs of SpaceX's unique iterative design approach to developing the world's most powerful rocket.
It's an eye-wateringly expensive process that's so far delivered muted results. The mess is also reportedly starting to affect the company's fundraising efforts, according to Bloomberg, with investors balking at a proposed $500 billion valuation.
To SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, the future of the company is riding on the success of Starship. For many years, the richest man in the world has touted the rocket as a way to deliver humans to Mars as part of his plan to make the human species interplanetary.
The danger is also financial. Musk has warned that SpaceX will face bankruptcy if it can't get the spacecraft working reliably, since the super-heavy launch platform is needed to deliver even more Starlink broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit to build out its main source of revenue.
It's such a big priority, insiders told Bloomberg, that SpaceX may soon be forced to push back Falcon 9-based Starlink launches later this year due to a surge of Falcon engineers being told to work on Starship instead.
It's also endangering SpaceX's obligations to NASA, as well as America's Moon program. The space agency is requiring that the company prove Starship can be refueled more than a dozen times in orbit before it can be certified for NASA's Moon landing mission, an unprecedented feat of engineering.
And according to Bloomberg, Musk's space firm may be stumbling by attempting to speed up the development process through taking design shortcuts.
The philosophy behind the iterative design approach remains the same: each spectacular Starship explosion will provide invaluable data for the next attempt. That line of thinking is so persistent that the company is planning to launch a number of remaining V2 Starship prototypes, despite engineers agreeing behind the scenes that the design is subpar, sources told Bloomberg.
In light of consistent setbacks, NASA and Congress have come up with contingency plans, allocating an additional $4 billion for the space agency and Boeing's massively expensive Space Launch System.
All eyes are on SpaceX as it attempts to successfully launch and land Starship for the first time.
"The number one thing is visible, demonstrable progress," space analytics firm BryceTech founder Carissa Christensen told Bloomberg. "I think that’s going to go a long way toward not creating negative perceptions."
More on Starship: China's Getting Ready to Land Astronauts on the Moon While NASA Flails Helplessly
Jackie Wattles, CNN
Sat, August 23, 2025
SpaceX's Starship lifts off on its eighth integrated test flight from the company's launch facilities in South Texas on March 6. - Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The most powerful rocket system ever constructed is headed for its next test — using a version of the vehicle that has been at the center of a series of explosive missteps and failures.
SpaceX said it is aiming to launch its Starship megarocket on an hour-long test flight as soon as 7:30 p.m. ET Sunday, though the liftoff time is subject to change. A webcast of the event is expected to begin about 30 minutes earlier, according to the company.
The uncrewed Starship prototype will follow a similar flight plan to the last three missions and aim to complete test objectives left untried during those tests, all of which ended prematurely. SpaceX debuted the current generation of Starship vehicles in January, following a clean run of test missions with a slightly scaled-down version of the rocket in 2024.
But since that debut, the vehicle has twice exploded over populated islands east of Florida, creating debris that hit roadways in Turks and Caicos and washed up onto the shores of Bahamian islands. The spacecraft also spun out of control as it headed toward its landing site in the Indian Ocean on its last test flight in May.
Then, in June, a Starship spacecraft that had been strapped to an engine testing stand at the company’s launch and development facilities in South Texas abruptly exploded — spewing shrapnel and causing damage to SpaceX infrastructure.
These setbacks roused long-standing SpaceX critics and attracted new ones, including the Mexican government, which has threatened legal action against the company over reported debris on and around its shores. The UK government also said in a statement Thursday that it’s been “working closely with US Government partners to protect the safety” of its overseas territories, including Turks and Caicos.
The string of mishaps this year has also raised concerns among spaceflight experts and stakeholders who have emphasized that the United States has a lot riding on Starship’s eventual success, including its plans to return humans to the moon as soon as 2027
And that success is not guaranteed.
“It’s very, very difficult to predict how this is going to end up,” said Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut and SpaceX consultant who is a professor of astronautical engineering at the University of Southern California.
“I think it could end up never working, or it could end up revolutionizing our entire future of activities in space — and geopolitics,” he added, referring to the US goal of displaying technical superiority to China in a new space race.
Why SpaceX is allowed to fly again
A plume of exhaust trails from a Starship rocket after a test launch from South Texas on May 27. - Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty Images
SpaceX said it implemented changes to the Starship system slated to fly this weekend in response to the last in-flight failure in May.
Those alterations include adjustments to a component called a fuel diffuser, which the company believes malfunctioned during the last flight, causing higher-than-expected pressure to build up in Starship’s nose cone. It is likely what caused the vehicle to spiral out of control, according to a technical overview SpaceX published last week.
Despite the series of recent problems, the Federal Aviation Administration — which licenses commercial rocket launches — said last week it had closed its investigation into SpaceX’s latest mishap and approved the company’s plans to fly Sunday’s mission.
Under current laws and regulations, the FAA is tasked solely with ensuring that commercial rocket companies do not pose a risk to public property or bystanders’ safety.
“There are no reports of public injury or damage to public property. The FAA oversaw and accepted the findings of the SpaceX-led investigation,” the agency said in an August 15 statement. “SpaceX identified corrective actions to prevent a reoccurrence of the event.”
A long road ahead
President Donald Trump listens as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaks on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11 in Washington, DC. - Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
In its update, SpaceX also made clear that the version of Starship that has experienced so many issues will soon be retired.
“Two flights remain with the current generation, each with test objectives designed to expand the envelope on vehicle capabilities,” according to a company blog post.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has already been teasing plans for larger, more ambitious iterations of the vehicle that would stretch even taller and carry more propellant.
Now it appears clear that SpaceX will pursue that scaled-up version of Starship — which is already more than twice as powerful as the NASA rockets that powered the Apollo moon landings — whether or not the current line of Starship prototypes ever pulls off a successful test flight.
“It’s very possible that a bigger upgrade might solve the current problem,” Reisman said. “It also could introduce new problems — you never know.”
Notably, the US government has taken several steps that could aide SpaceX in its efforts to expedite Starship testing.
In May, the FAA approved the company’s plans to launch Starship as many as 25 times per year from Texas, up from the five it had been previously authorized to conduct.
And earlier this month, President Donald Trump — despite a public and vitriolic falling out with Musk in June — issued an executive order that appears designed to scale back roadblocks and regulatory oversight for private-sector rocket operations, including environmental reviews.
Meanwhile, the stakes appear to be growing with each Starship test flight, as SpaceX is racing against the clock.
Not only does Musk want to send one of the vehicles on an uncrewed flight to Mars when the next opportunity arises in 2026, but NASA also plans to send its astronauts to the lunar surface aboard one of the vehicles as soon as mid-2027 as part of a $2.9 billion contract.
“We made this bet” on Starship, said Janet Petro, who served as acting NASA administrator until July. “They have had a rough year, but SpaceX is a pretty intense and motivated company.”
Petro added she had “full confidence” that SpaceX will refine Starship’s design and get the vehicle working.
Reisman, the former SpaceX adviser, said he is also hopeful but less certain.
“SpaceX has made an existential gamble on Starship,” Reisman said, adding that he is concerned about the rate of progress SpaceX has been making with Starship. “They’re pouring a tremendous amount of money and resources into its development … but at some point, the laws of financial physics still apply.”
What SpaceX hopes to achieve with Flight 10
The Starship Flight 8 booster returns the launchpad at SpaceX's South Texas facilities on March 6. - Brandon Bell/Getty Images
If all goes according to plan with Starship’s next flight, referred to as Flight 10, the 400-foot-tall Starship launch system will take off from SpaceX’s facilities in South Texas and soar out over the waters off the coast.
The bottom portion of the rocket system that gives the initial burst of power at liftoff, called Super Heavy, will attempt to make a controlled splashdown off the Texas coast, according to SpaceX.
For this mission, the company will not attempt to repeat its dramatic Super Heavy “chopsticks” landing in which the rocket booster steers itself back into the arms of the tower from which it launched. SpaceX said it will instead put the booster through a series of tests designed to push the vehicle to its limits “to gather real-world performance data” that could mimic a future mission that does not go as planned.
Meanwhile, the upper Starship spacecraft, which is designed to one day carry cargo or convoys of astronauts but will haul only dummy satellites for this mission, will continue flying through space.
During the flight, Starship will attempt to deploy the eight satellite “simulators” as well as relight one of the spacecraft’s rocket engines in space. SpaceX has failed to hit both of those milestones in its last three test missions.
Even if this V2 Starship prototype meets a similarly ill fate, SpaceX is likely once again to frame the test flight as a success.
The company employs an engineering philosophy called “rapid iterative development,” which emphasizes a pursuit of launching relatively cheap prototypes on frequent test missions over extensive ground testing or other less risky simulations.
Because of its unique development approach, SpaceX has been known to embrace fiery mishaps. The company has said that even failed test flights help engineers improve Starship’s design — quicker than if SpaceX employed alternative engineering approaches.
“Every lesson learned, through both flight and ground testing, continues to feed directly into designs for the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX’s August 15 statement reads. “Two flights remain with the current generation, each with test objectives designed to expand the envelope on vehicle capabilities as we iterate towards fully and rapidly reusable, reliable rockets.”
SpaceX’s development approach, while often seen as risky and brazen, has served the company well in the past.
Rarely has one of the company’s rockets malfunctioned once it leaves the development stage and becomes operational. The company’s human spaceflight track record, using Falcon 9 rockets, has been spotless.
And if Starship does eventually work, Reisman said, it won’t only be SpaceX — or even NASA — that benefits.
“The entire space industry is hoping and betting on Starship working, because if it achieves its promise, it’ll also be a revolution in affordability,” Reisman said. “I think there’s causes for optimism and pessimism — and I think it’s very, very difficult to predict how this is going to end up.”
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