Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Sunday called off the launch of Starship’s tenth mission from Texas over an issue at its launch site, delaying an attempt to achieve several long-sought development milestones missed due to past tests ending in early failures.
The 70.7-meter-tall Super Heavy booster and its 52-meter-tall Starship upper half sat stacked on a launch mount at SpaceX’s Starbase rocket facilities as it was being filled with propellant ahead of a liftoff time of 7:35 p.m. ET (2335 GMT).
But roughly 30 minutes from liftoff, SpaceX said on X it was standing down to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems.
Musk had been poised to provide an update on Starship’s development progress prior to the rocket’s launch on Sunday, but a placeholder live stream indicated it had been canceled.
Similar postponements in the past have been resolved in a matter of days. SpaceX is now targeting as soon as Monday, August 25, for Starship’s next launch attempt, according to its website.
Development of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket, the center of the company’s powerful launch business future and Musk’s Mars ambitions, has faced repeated hiccups this year.
Two Starship testing failures early in flight, another failure in space on its ninth flight, and a massive test stand explosion in June that sent debris flying into nearby Mexican territory have tested SpaceX’s test-to-failure development approach.
Still, the company has continued to swiftly produce new Starships for test flights at its sprawling Starbase production facilities. NASA hopes to use the rocket as soon as 2027 for its first crewed moon landing since the Apollo program.
The setbacks underscore the technical complexities of Starship’s latest iteration, packed with far more capabilities such as increased thrust, a potentially more resilient heat shield and stronger steering flaps crucial to nailing its atmospheric reentry – key traits for Starship’s rapid reusability that Musk has long pushed for.
The stacked system had been expected to blast off from Texas around sunset on Sunday before its Starship upper stage separated from the Super Heavy booster dozens of miles in altitude. Super Heavy, which has returned for a landing at its launch pad in giant mechanical arms in past tests, would have instead targeted the Gulf of Mexico for a soft water landing in order to test a backup engine configuration.
Starship was to briefly ignite its own engines to blast further into space, where it would have attempted to release its first batch of mock Starlink satellites and reignite an engine while on a suborbital path around the planet.
After that phase, the ship targets an atmospheric reentry over the Indian Ocean, a crucial flight phase that tests a variety of prototypical heat shield tiles and engine flaps designed to endure a barrage of blazing heat that has largely shredded the rocket’s exterior during past flights.
“Starship’s reentry profile is designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the upper stage’s rear flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure,” SpaceX said on its website.
SpaceX postpones Starship test flight over ground system issue
https://arab.news/mscxt
SpaceX postpones Starship test flight over ground system issue
- SpaceX is now targeting as soon as Monday, August 25, for Starship’s next launch attempt
- Development of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket has faced repeated hiccups this year
Zelensky presses EU to tap Russian assets at crunch summit
- “Russian assets must be used to defend against Russian aggression and rebuild what was destroyed by Russian attacks. It’s moral. It’s fair. It’s legal,” Zelensky said
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was among those agreeing strongly as he said there was “no better option“
Brussels: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders Thursday they had the “moral” and legal right to use frozen Russian assets to fund Kyiv — as pressure grew on key player Belgium to drop its opposition at a summit showdown.
The 27-nation bloc is scrambling to bolster its ally Ukraine, as US President Donald Trump pushes for a deal with President Vladimir Putin to end the fighting.
Officials have insisted leaders’ talks in Brussels will last as long as it takes to hammer out an agreement, saying both Ukraine’s survival — nearly four years into the war — and Europe’s credibility are at stake.
“We will not leave the European summit without a solution for the funding of Ukraine,” European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said.
The EU’s executive wants to fund a loan to Ukraine by using frozen assets from Russia’s central bank, though it is holding on to a back-up plan for the bloc to raise the money itself.
The EU estimates Ukraine needs an extra 135 billion euros ($159 billion) to stay afloat over the next two years — with the cash crunch set to start in April.
Zelensky said Kyiv needed a decision on its financing by the end of the year and that the move could give it more leverage in talks to end the war.
“Russian assets must be used to defend against Russian aggression and rebuild what was destroyed by Russian attacks. It’s moral. It’s fair. It’s legal,” Zelensky said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was among those agreeing strongly as he said there was “no better option.”
But Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever — who held talks with Zelensky on the sidelines — seemed unconvinced so far.
“I have not seen a text that could persuade me to give Belgium’s agreement,” he told Belgian lawmakers before the summit kicked off.
The vast bulk of the assets are held by international deposit organization Euroclear in Belgium, and the government fears it could face crippling financial and legal reprisals from Moscow.
EU officials say they have gone out of their way to allay Belgian worries and that multiple layers of protection — including guarantees from other member states — mean the risks are minimal.
“At this stage, the guarantees offered by the Commission remain insufficient,” De Wever said.
- Ukraine’s looming cash crunch -
In a bid to plug Kyiv’s yawning gap, the Commission has proposed tapping 210 billion euros of frozen assets, initially to provide Kyiv 90 billion euros over two years.
The unprecedented scheme would see the funds loaned to the EU, which would then loan them on to Ukraine.
Kyiv would then only pay back the “reparations loan” once the Kremlin compensates it for the damage.
In theory, other EU countries could override Belgium and ram the initiative through with a weighted majority, but that would be a nuclear option that few see as likely for now.
De Wever insisted that the EU should go for its alternative plan of raising money itself — but diplomats said that option had been shelved as it needed unanimity and Hungary was firmly against.
Bubbling close to the surface of the EU’s discussion are the US efforts to forge a deal to end the war.
Zelensky said Ukrainian and US delegations would hold new talks on Friday and Saturday in the United States.
He said he wanted Washington to give more details on the guarantees it could offer to protect Ukraine from another invasion.
“What will the United States of America do if Russia comes again with aggression?” he asked. “What will these security guarantees do? How will they work?“
