SpaceX delays Starship launch in megarocket’s latest setback

SpaceX delayed a planned test flight for its Starship mega-rocket by 24 hours until yesterday evening, saying it needed time to troubleshoot problems, in the latest setback for Elon Musk’s behemoth after a series of explosive failures.

- RONALDO SCHEMIDT DANIEL LAWLER

The recent problems have led some observers to doubt whether the world’s biggest and most powerful launch vehicle will be capable of taking humans back to the Moon, or achieving Mr Musk’s dreams of colonising Mars.

The rocket had been scheduled to blast off on its tenth flight from the company’s Starbase in southern Texas at 6:30 pm local time Sunday (6:30 am yesterday in Thailand).

However, around 15 minutes before liftoff, SpaceX scrubbed the flight, which is a relatively common event for space launches.

“Standing down from today’s tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems,” it said on X.

Mr Musk later posted on the same platform that a “ground side liquid oxygen leak needs to be fixed.”

SpaceX said it had rescheduled the launch for “as soon as” the same time yesterday, though it cautioned that the timing was still “dynamic and likely to change.”

Road closures nearby Starbase indicated that today had also been cleared for a potential attempt.