Key Takeaways
- SpaceX canceled the 10th test flight of its Starship due to technical issues.
- The last Starship test in June ended with an explosion during a preflight procedure.
- Earlier on the same day, SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket for the ISS resupply mission.
Starship Test Flight Canceled
SpaceX has scrapped its planned 10th test flight of the Starship, the company’s heavy-lift launch vehicle, due to technical difficulties. The launch was scheduled to occur from SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Texas around 6:30 p.m. on Sunday. This would have marked the fourth launch attempt of the year for Starship, which is designed to succeed SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
In a statement on social media platform X, SpaceX indicated, “Standing down from today’s tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems.” This decision comes after a challenging series of prior test flights. The previous attempt, Flight 9 in June, ended with the vehicle exploding during a preflight check. Flight 8, carried out on March 6, lost communication just minutes after liftoff, while Flight 7 exploded shortly after its launch.
Despite the setback with the Starship test flight, SpaceX successfully accomplished a different mission on the same day. Earlier, the company launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, delivering 5,000 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). This mission marked the 50th Dragon capsule flight to the ISS and represented the 33rd resupply mission to the orbiting laboratory.
The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket successfully landed on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, underscoring the reliability of SpaceX’s existing Falcon 9 program even as it continues to work through challenges with the Starship program.
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