SpaceX calls off attempt to launch Starship’s 8th test flight | CNN

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for the day. Read more about Starship’s scrubbed attempt to launch its eighth test flight here, or scroll through the posts below to relive the event as it unfolded.

SpaceX did not share what, exactly, the issues were that led engineers to wave off today’s launch attempt.

One noteworthy point: The company only stacked the Starship spacecraft atop the Super Heavy booster this morning. Such last-minute assembly is not common in the world of rocketry.

SpaceX’s Dan Huot said the company opted to wait to stack the rocket system in an effort to continue chasing the goal of making Starship as nimble as possible.

“We really want to get to a point where we can fly rapidly, fly as quickly as possible,” Huot said. “And so this is definitely a case to try and push that forward.”

He added that SpaceX did not conduct a “wet dress” rehearsal of the vehicle, a ground test that typically precedes rocket launches during which engineers fill the rocket with fuel and practice for launch. Such proceedings are typically opportunities to hash out any issues before launch.

The countdown clock briefly restarted but then promptly was put on hold again as computers detected more issues. SpaceX’s Dan Huot said the company is now going to offload the millions of pounds of propellant on board the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster.

The company did not say when it will try again. But Huot said it’s possible they will try again tomorrow.

An undiclosed issue with the Super Heavy booster does not appear to be the issue anymore.

“We’re now holding for a late breaking issue with ship,” according to the webcast.

The clock is still on hold with 40 seconds remaining.

SpaceX engineers need to work on an undisclosed issue with the Super Heavy booster.

The company paused the clock at T-40 seconds.

Earlier in the livestream, SpaceX’s Dan Huot said the company has “several minutes” it can hold “just kind of troubleshoot those final issues before we get the go.”

SpaceX built in a hold for T-40 seconds as flight controllers are working to solve an issue with the Super Heavy booster. Details of the problem were not disclosed.

But the company is not expecting the issue to hold up this flight.

“We’re not holding or anything yet, and we’re expecting that issue to clear before we get to that T-40 mark,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said.

So far, every test flight of a Starship rocket has launched from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities in South Texas. But the company has for years been eyeing a plan to also launch the vehicle from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida — the nation’s busiest spaceport.

“SpaceX intends to conduct the first Starship launch from Florida from Launchpad 39 later this year,” SpaceX’s Christopher Gebhardt said.

Perhaps the most interesting goal SpaceX will chase on today’s test flight: The company plans to attempt to deploy satellite “simulators” from the Starship spacecraft.

The company had hoped to test out the means by which Starship would accomplish that task during Flight 7 in January. But the spacecraft abruptly exploded about 10 minutes into flight.

Because Starship is not equipped with a nose cone, or payload fairing, as most other rockets are, the satellites will likely need to be ejected from a special hatch or doors. It may be similar to the method NASA’s Space Shuttle used to unleash spacecraft.

SpaceX said the satellite simulators used on today’s flight will be “similar in size and weight” to the company’s next generation of Starlink internet satellites.

Note, however, that the simulators will not actually stay in space. Instead, they’ll travel on a suborbital path, much like the Starship spacecraft itself, which is slated to splash down in the Indian Ocean about one hour after takeoff.

SpaceX just posted an animation showing the trajectory that Starship will travel during today’s mission.

SpaceX is using Raptor 2 engines on today’s mission. There are a whopping 33 of them at the base of the Super Heavy rocket booster, which provides the burst of power that hauls the Starship system off the ground at liftoff.

But SpaceX teased a new version of the engine in store: The Raptor 3.

“Here at SpaceX, we like to continuously improve our designs by eliminating the parts we don’t need,” SpaceX’s Christopher Gebhardt said on the webcast. “We call this applying the algorithm, and that helps us simplify designs and drives us toward rapid, reliable reuse.”

Gebhardt noted a few features of the upgraded engine: It “eliminates the large and heavy engine heat shields, which means that when we move from the Raptor 2 to the Raptor 3 engines on Starship, each Raptor 3 engine is going to save us about 1.1 metric tons of mass.”

“And that’s a lot of mass when you multiply that by (33) or more engines,” he added.

During today’s flight, SpaceX will once again attempt to guide a Super Heavy booster back to a safe landing in the arms of Mechazilla — a feat the company has accomplished twice before and one SpaceX must master as it gears up to fly operational Starship missions.

One issue that may bother local residents, however, is that Super Heavy sends out an earsplitting sonic boom upon its return.

CNN spoke to researchers who monitored noise levels during a couple recent test flights.

During Starship’s Flight 5 in October 2024, the sound was as loud as a gunshot even miles away at a popular tourist destination, the researchers reported in a study that published in November.

“It truly was one of the loudest things I’ve ever heard or experienced,” said Noah Pulsipher, student at Brigham Young University and a coauthor of the recent study about the noise associated with the Starship launch.

A recent update to that study, published on February 25, compares the noise given off by flights 5 and 6, which took off in November.

It concluded that “environmental assessment predictions closely match measured” Flight 6 noises within 10 kilometers of the launch site. But, other than that, environmental assessments underpredicted Flight 5 sound levels and overpredicted Flight 6 levels, according to the study.

The sonic booms associated with the booster landing maneuver could raise new environmental concerns for a rocket development program already mired in them. Sonic boom-related health issues may include potential hearing damage for people nearby and minor structural problems for buildings in the area near the launch site.

SpaceX has also acknowledged the booms: “Generally, the only impact to those in the surrounding area of a sonic boom is the brief thunder-like noise with variables like weather and distance from the return site determining the magnitude experienced by observers.”

Read more about sonic booms here.

SpaceX said it stripped off a “significant” number of heat shield tiles from the upper Starship spacecraft, which rides atop the Super Heavy rocket booster at the beginning of flight.

Heat shield tiles are the black, hexagon-shaped pieces that cover the spacecraft’s belly. They’re designed to shield the vehicle from the extreme heat that builds up as the vehicle plunges back into the thickest part of Earth’s atmosphere during a process known as reentry.

The maneuver can heat up Starship’s exterior to more than 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit (1,427 degrees Celsius).

Shedding heat shield tiles for this flight is designd to “stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle” — or in other words push the vehicle to its limits to identify its points of failure.

SpaceX also said it’s testing out some new materials to use for heat shield tiles.

Starship’s sides also now include mock-up “catch fittings,” or hardware designed to make contact with SpaceX’s launch and recover tower when the company begins attempting to return Starship back to a safe landing.

Note: Starship won’t attempt to land back on terra firma today. It’s slated to make a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean about an hour after takeoff. But SpaceX is including the catch hardware in order to test its “thermal performance,” according to the company.

“That’s one of the real big things we’re still working on — rapidly reusable heat shield has never existed in history,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during Monday’s livestream.

A livestream of this Starship mission just started on the company’s website and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that SpaceX CEO Elon Musk purchased in 2022.

Hosting the livestream are Dan Huot, a SpaceX communications manager, and Kate Tice, a SpaceX quality systems engineering senior manager. Christopher Gebhardt, the editorial manager of SpaceX’s internal communications, is also providing insights from SpaceX’s headquarters in California.

SpaceX just shared on social media that flight controllers have given the green light to begin loading up the Starship and Super Heavy with fuel.

Together, Starship and Super Heavy can hold more than 10 million pounds of liquid oxygen and methane.

The company also shared an updated target time for takeoff: 5:45 p.m. CT, or 6:45 p.m. ET.

Starbase — SpaceX’s name for the company’s South Texas facilities — lies next to Boca Chica Beach, a strip of coastline on that borders Mexico on the state’s southernmost tip.

Only one roadway runs in and out of the area: A stretch of asphalt called Boca Chica Highway. The westbound lane includes a US Border Patrol checkpoint.

Before SpaceX moved in, there were only a couple dozen homes nearby in an area called Boca Chica Village. And locals from the neighboring city of Brownsville routinely trekked to Boca Chica Beach to enjoy the rare slice of untouched coastline.

Most longtime residents have since been pushed out. SpaceX purchased and painted many of the homes, allowing employees to move in. And launchpads now lie mere steps from the public beach — which closes intermittently as SpaceX must shut down the roadway for safety or transportation reasons.

SpaceX also has repeatedly drawn the ire of environmentalists who say the company has disregarded local wildlife and violated conservation laws. (The company has denied the allegations.)

The actual name of “Starbase” is not yet official. But recently, Eddie Treviño, the Cameron County judge, greenlit a petition to allow residents of the previously unincorporated area — the vast majority of whom are SpaceX employees — to vote on the area becoming a municipality in May.

The sole candidate for mayor is a SpaceX security official.

SpaceX may also face pushback over the sonic booms that the Super Heavy rocket booster can blast over the area as it heads for landing. The Federal Aviation Administration recently held public hearings for area residents to voice concerns.

SpaceX will once again aim to return the Super Heavy booster — the bottommost part of the Starship system equipped with more than 30 engines — back to a safe landing at the launch tower mere minutes after liftoff.

If all goes according to plan, Super Heavy will burn through most of its fuel and separate from the Starship spacecraft. The Super Heavy will then re-configure itself, lighting engines to orient itself to begin falling back toward home and safely slice back through the atmosphere.

Once the booster nears SpaceX’s launch tower, it will attempt to steer itself into the arms of Mechazilla — a massive structure that the company designed to catch rockets mid-air.

The tower was dubbed “Mechazilla” for its likeness to a metallic Godzilla.

The structure’s arms, or “chopsticks,” can be used to stack and move boosters and spacecraft at the launch site before takeoff as well as snag a rocket as it maneuvers to land, according to SpaceX.

If successful, Monday’s test flight will mark the third, successful Mechazilla landing for a Super Heavy booster. But SpaceX typically reserves the option to abort a landing attempt — and aim for an ocean splashdown — if data readings are off.

Either by Mechazilla capture or ocean splashdown, the Super Heavy’s landing will occur about seven minutes after liftoff.

On today’s mission, SpaceX is testing new radar sensors on the tower’s chopsticks.

The sensors are designed to increase “the accuracy when measuring distances between the chopsticks and a returning vehicle,” according to the company.

Alizee Zimmermann, executive director of the Turks and Caicos Reef Fund, told CNN that residents are still finding rubble more than a month after the January Starship explosion.

“A lot of (the debris) has broken down or is now buried in the sargassum and seaweed that rolls in,” Zimmerman said via text.

TC Reef Fund aided the local government in creating a database that tracks debris reports.

In an article she wrote for a newsletter scheduled to publish at the end of March, which she provided to CNN, Zimmermann wrote, “To this day, little information has been shared by officials…and TC Reef has not been given any updates regarding the cleanup even though our offer to assist through coordinated volunteers remains.”

She also noted she had a “good conversation” with a SpaceX engineer about the environmental implications of the debris, and company representatives said they are “confident” the impact to wildlife will be “negligible.”

But, “This also begs the question, what is considered ‘negligible’ in a world fraught with environmental destruction?” Zimmermann wrote. “Business as usual is no longer an option.”

The article also urges SpaceX and others to “prioritize environmental impact assessments, funding for cleanup operations, and preventive measures moving forward.”

SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.

SpaceX has been in the hot seat since the last Starship test flight, when the upper spacecraft portion of the launch system erupted into a ball of flames mere minutes into flight.

The debris caused flight disruptions, and one piece of detritus struck a vehicle on the island of South Caicos, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

No other instances of property damage or injury were reported, though residents of the archipelago of Turks and Caicos told CNN they found debris from the spacecraft littering beaches and roadways.

Here’s what’s happened since:

• Volunteers, residents and local environmentalists began collecting the debris. People who spoke to CNN said they weren’t informed that rocket debirs may be hazardous until a notice from the local government was posted the day after the January 16 explosion.

• Turks and Caicos officials met with SpaceX personnel in late January to “develop a recovery plan for debris,” according to a public notice. That plan was approved February 13. The contents of the plan were not divulged, and it’s not clear who is paying for the effort.

• SpaceX has also sought to convey to residents that the Starship debris will not harm the local ecosystem, according to a SpaceX document obtained by CNN.

Hexagon-shaped heat shield tiles were among the most prolific type of debris found by residents. In a document SpaceX provided to some residents, which was obtained by CNN, the company states the “high-grade silica” tiles are “highly resistant to degradation” but they have “no toxic risks.”

The company also shared a photo of a burger and fries sitting on a square plate that appears to be made of the same material with the caption: “Starbase restaurant serves food on the thermal tiles.”

Starbase is the name SpaceX gave to its facilities in South Texas.

Starship, which launches out of SpaceX facilities in South Texas, is not the only major aerospace story currently unfolding in the Lone Star State.

Over the weekend, Texas-based company Firefly, which is headquartered in a suburb of Austin, soft-landed an uncrewed, robotic spacecraft on the moon — a historic feat.

The safe touchdown made Firefly only the second private-sector company ever to complete such an endeavor.

The first company to accomplish the task — Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which soft-landed its Odysseus spacecraft last year — lies a three-hour drive away.

And Intuitive Machines currently has another vehicle, called Athena, headed for the moon.

Athena is expected to touch down on the lunar surface midday on Thursday.

Both Athena and Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander are packed with science instruments and technology demonstrations from NASA, which is supporting both missions under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

SpaceX rolled out a brand-new verision of the Starship spacecraft ahead of January’s Flight 7.

The upgrades included a 25% larger fuel tank, brand new avionics, and upgraded flight computers.

But the last flight didn’t go so well.

The vehicle abruptly exploded about 10 minutes into the mission, whereas the last few missions prior to Flight 7 saw Starship make a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean more than an hour after liftoff.

Federal regulators required a post-flight investigation. And SpaceX said it conducted ground tests and analysis that informed some changes the company will debut today.

The company said it altered lines that feed fuel to some of the Starship’s engines, tweaked propellant temperatures, and adjusted the vehicle’s “operating thrust target” — or how much power SpaceX aims for the engines to give off during flight.

Starship also has new vents and a “purge system” that can use nitrogen to help flush out fuel leaks and make the aft area less flammable, according to SpaceX.

The Super Heavy booster has some changes as well, including “a more powerful flight computer, improved power and network distribution, and integrated smart batteries.”