SpaceX officials scrubbed the launch of the proposed 10th test flight of Starship/Super Heavy, which was slated to lift off from the company's Starbase headquarters in the Rio Grande Valley on Sunday evening.
The launch was called off about half an hour before the slated launch time as crews worked to troubleshoot issues. But SpaceX is expected to take another shot at launching Flight 10 on Monday.
"Standing down from today's tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems," SpaceX officials wrote in an X post at 6:13 p.m. on Sunday, August 24. Starship had been expected to blast off at 6:50 p.m.
In two X posts late Sunday evening, SpaceX company founder, Elon Musk stated he was at Starbase and that he expected the company to attempt to launch Starship during Monday's backup launch window after repairing a fuel leak.
"Ground side liquid oxygen leak needs to be fixed. Aiming for another launch attempt tomorrow," Musk said in the X post at 11:10 p.m. CDT on Sunday, August 24.
The company echoed Musk's intention on the Flight 10 page on SpaceX's website.
"The tenth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Monday, August 25. The launch window will open at 6:30 p.m. CT," SpaceX officials stated.
Flight 10 is expected to put both the Starship suborbital spacecraft and the Super Heavy Booster -- both of which are outfitted with the company's proprietary Raptor rocket engines -- through their paces in a series of tests meant to examine how the vehicles operate under adverse conditions. For instance, on Starship certain heat shield tiles have been removed from Starship's exterior, while others made of "alternative materials" have been installed to test how they behave during reentry to the atmosphere. However, neither vehicle is slated to return to the Starbase launch site.
"The booster on this flight test is attempting several flight experiments to gather real-world performance data on future flight profiles and off-nominal scenarios," SpaceX officials stated. "The Super Heavy booster will attempt these experiments while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for catch."