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For the second day in a row, SpaceX has canceled the launch of its giant Starship rocket in Texas. On Monday evening (Aug 25), the company halted liftoff plans due to poor weather conditions. This came less than 24 hours after a previous attempt was scrapped because of a liquid oxygen leak.
The rocket, stacked on its Super Heavy booster, stands an enormous 397 feet (121 meters) tall, making it even bigger than the Statue of Liberty. Starship is central to Elon Musk’s dream of building reusable rockets capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon and Mars. The latest test flight which would have been the vehicle’s tenth was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. local time (0030 GMT) from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas.
On X, SpaceX confirmed the delay, posting: “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt due to weather.” The company added that the Starship team was working to determine the next best launch opportunity.
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This postponement adds to a series of recent failures. Starship’s upper stage has exploded during all three test flights this year. In two cases, debris fell over Caribbean islands, while in another, the stage broke apart after reaching space. A separate rocket also exploded during a static fire test in June.
So far, Starship has not been able to place any payloads into orbit or return its upper stage in one piece. Despite this, Elon Musk has remained optimistic. Responding to a user on X on Sunday, he predicted: “In about 6 or 7 years, there will be days where Starship launches more than 24 times in 24 hours.”
Musk has staked SpaceX’s long-term future on Starship, describing it as the vehicle that will eventually replace the company’s workhorse Falcon rockets. The fully reusable system is also key to his plan of enabling large-scale human missions to Mars.
NASA has already selected Starship for its first crewed lunar mission since Apollo, expected in 2027. Despite repeated setbacks, SpaceX continues with its “fail fast, learn fast” strategy, rapidly testing and refining the rocket. The company has successfully demonstrated the catching of Starship’s Super Heavy booster with its tower arms nicknamed “chopsticks” on three separate occasions.
Still, industry experts are beginning to question whether Musk’s boldest project is in trouble. Space analyst Dallas Kasaboski told AFP: “I think there is a lot of pressure on this mission. We’ve had so many tests and it hasn’t proven itself reliable the successes have not exceeded the failures.”
Others have raised even sharper concerns. Will Lockett, a former engineer turned commentator, has argued that the Starship concept might be “fundamentally flawed.”
