Aug. 25 (UPI) — SpaceX‘s Starship is scheduled to launch at 7:30 p.m. EDT Monday after nine other test flights.
“After completing the investigations into the loss of Starship on its ninth flight test and the Ship 36 static fire anomaly, hardware and operational changes have been made to increase reliability,” SpaceX said in a statement.
The launch was supposed to happen Sunday night in Boca Chica, Texas, but the flight was scrubbed. It was to be the fourth launch of the year of Starship, the largest rocket on Earth and the successor to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
“Standing down from today’s 10th flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems,” the company said in a post on X.
The last time SpaceX attempted to test the Starship, Flight 9 in June, it exploded during a preflight procedure on the launch pad. Flight 8, on March 6, lost contact minutes after launch, and Flight 7 exploded shortly after launch.
The primary test objectives for the booster will focus on its landing burn and will use unique engine configurations, SpaceX said. One of the three center engines used for the final phase of landing will be intentionally disabled to gather data on the ability for a backup engine from the middle ring to complete a landing burn. The booster will then transition to only two center engines for the end of the landing burn, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed by shutdown and drop into the Gulf of Mexico.
The Starship upper stage will again target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to be destroyed on entry.
A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned, the company said.
The test includes several experiments to enable Starship’s upper stage to return to the launch site. The flight is testing several tile materials to find vulnerable areas and test the tiles.
Flight tests continue to provide valuable information to inform the design of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles, SpaceX said.
“With production ramping up inside Starfactory at Starbase alongside new launch and test infrastructure actively being built in Texas and Florida, Starship is poised to continue iterating toward a rapidly and fully reusable launch system,” the statement said.
Earlier Sunday, SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla., loaded with 5,000 pounds cargo for the International Space Station. It was the 50th Dragon capsule mission to the ISS and the 33rd resupply mission to the space station.