Elon Musk’s SpaceX was forced to delay their launch of its Starship rocket for the second time in less than a week Monday evening.
Flight 8 was scheduled to lift off around 6:30pm ET from SpaceX’s ‘Starbase’ in Boca Chica near Brownsville, Texas. However, a technical issue on the launch pad could not be fixed in time and the mission was scrubbed.
Their first attempt at launching Flight 8 was called off on Friday, February 28 with no official reason given.
It’s the latest setback for Musk, with his company’s last flight test weeks ago ending with a mid-air explosion.
Standing over 400 feet tall, the SpaceX rocket carries two very important parts – the ‘Super Heavy’ booster engine and the starship launch vehicle – called ‘ship 34.’
The unmanned test had several goals over the roughly 66-minute planned flight as SpaceX pushes towards Musk’s mission to safely deliver humans to Mars.
For Flight 8 to be a success Monday, Starship would have needed to safely detach from its massive engine (Booster 15) and splash down in the Indian Ocean off Western .
The booster engine also needed to return to the launch pad and have the tower’s ‘chopstick’ arms catch it about seven minutes after launching off. This revolutionary process allows SpaceX to reuse their booster engines during future missions.
This particular flight looked to test Starship’s ability to deploy SpaceX’s Starlink satellites during the flight – launching four simulated Starlink modules before ship 34 reenters the atmosphere. Unfortunately, the rocket is still stuck on the ground for at least another 24 hours.
A leak near Starship’s fuel tanks is believed to have destroyed the spacecraft during the January 16 flight test
Debris, with unclear relations to the spacecraft, was captured on camera flying across the Caribbean just minutes after the flight test on January 16
Monday’s test was to be the first starship launch since the destruction of Flight 7 on January 16.
According to SpaceX, ‘Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn.’
In simpler language, the vehicle designed to take humans to the Red Planet broke apart in a fiery scene less than 10 minutes into its hour-long flight.
The explosion of the spacecraft was captured on camera across the Caribbean just minutes after the flight test, leading to 20 commercial flights being diverted to avoid colliding with debris from the ship.
On a positive note, the failed mission did successfully return the booster rocket, which was caught in the chopsticks as planned.
Prior to the January mission, SpaceX noted that Flight 7 featured ‘significant upgrades’ over the company’s previous starship launches.
As for Monday’s flight, SpaceX said on its website that there have now been ‘extensive upgrades to Starship’s upper stage’ – referring to the vessel that was destroyed six weeks ago.
‘Starship’s forward flaps have been upgraded to significantly reduce their exposure to reentry heating while simplifying the underlying mechanisms and protective tiling,’ SpaceX officials wrote.
Ship 34 features major improvements to the spacecraft’s propulsion system, including 25 percent more propellant than previous SpaceX vehicles – meaning the ship has much more fuel and should be capable of longer missions in the future.
A leak in the back of the craft, near the tanks holding this rocket propellant, is believed to have caused the explosion which destroyed Flight 7.
SpaceX looked to safely land the starship launch vehicle, return the booster rocket to the launch pad, and deploy a set of test satellites for Starlink on Monday night before scrubbing the mission
Around six and a half minutes into the Flight 7 mission on January 16, Super Heavy returned and was successfully caught by the launch tower’s ‘chopsticks’ for the second time
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The Super Heavy booster engine was also upgraded for Monday’s aborted flight, with work crews giving it a, ‘more powerful flight computer, improved power and network distribution, and integrated smart batteries.’
Along with the four dummy Starlink satellites Flight 8 plans to deploy, Elon Musk’s team wanted to relight a single Raptor engine while in space.
The starship module carries six of these next-generation engines, which are designed to work in the vacuum of space. Simply put, SpaceX is hoping they’ll power a manned spaceflight all the way to Mars one day.
Musk recently appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, where he appeared to rapidly accelerate the timeline for arriving on the Red Planet.
Musk said that SpaceX’s ‘default plan’ was to ‘launch several Starships to Mars at the end of next year.’
These missions would also have no crews, just like Monday’s planned flight test, and would see if the vehicles could successfully land on Mars. Musk noted he’s hoping his company will launch a total of five starships to Mars in 2026.