SpaceX was forced to call off the highly anticipated tenth test flight of its Starship megarocket on Sunday, dealing another blow to Elon Musk’s ambitious plans for deep space exploration.
The launch, scheduled from the company’s Starbase facility in southern Texas at 6:30 pm local time (2330 GMT), was halted just 15 minutes before liftoff. “Standing down from today’s tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems,” the company announced on X. While such delays are not unusual in the space industry, the latest postponement adds to a string of difficulties plaguing the world’s most powerful rocket.
Starship, standing at 403 feet (123 meters), is designed to be fully reusable and central to Musk’s long-term vision of colonizing Mars. NASA is also relying on a modified version of the spacecraft for its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the Moon. However, the rocket’s upper stage the vehicle intended to ferry crew and cargo has exploded in all three of its 2025 test flights, raising doubts about the system’s reliability.
Two of those explosions scattered debris over Caribbean islands, while another vehicle disintegrated after briefly reaching space. In June, an upper stage blew up during a static fire test, underscoring the technical hurdles SpaceX continues to face. Despite these failures, the company has achieved partial success with its lower stage booster, which it has caught three times using giant tower arms nicknamed “chopsticks.”
Industry analysts warn that SpaceX’s reputation is under growing pressure. “We’ve had so many tests and it hasn’t proven itself reliable the successes have not exceeded the failures,” said Dallas Kasaboski, a space analyst with Analysys Mason. Others, like engineer-turned-commentator Will Lockett, argue the rocket’s inability to reach orbit with a payload could suggest “the concept of Starship is fundamentally flawed.”
Musk, who has vowed to eventually retire the Falcon rocket family in favor of Starship, has remained uncharacteristically quiet since the scrubbed launch. SpaceX has road clearances for possible retry attempts on Monday and Tuesday, but no new launch window has been confirmed.
With NASA, investors, and space enthusiasts watching closely, the stakes for Starship’s next flight could not be higher.
