SpaceX has pushed the eighth test flight of its Starship megarocket back a few days.
Elon Musk’s company had been targeting Friday (Feb. 28) for Flight 8 of Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. But that’s no longer the plan.
“Now targeting to launch Starship’s eighth flight test as soon as Monday, March 3,” SpaceX said in an X post early on Thursday morning (Feb. 27). No reason was given for the delay.
If all goes to plan, Starship will lift off from Starbase, SpaceX’s facility in South Texas, on Monday during a window that opens at 6:30 p.m. EST (2330 GMT; 5:30 p.m. local Texas time). You’ll be able to watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX.
Related: SpaceX catches Super Heavy booster on Starship Flight 7 test but loses upper stage (video, photos)
A fully stacked Starship launched for the first time in April 2023. The rocket has flown six more times since then, most recently on Jan. 16.
That mission, Flight 7, was partially successful. SpaceX managed to catch Starship’s huge first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, with the “chopstick” arms of Starbase’s launch tower about seven minutes after liftoff.
Ship, the vehicle’s upper stage, was supposed to deploy 10 dummy versions of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, circle much of the planet, and splash down in the Indian Ocean off Western Australia about an hour after launch. That didn’t happen, however; Ship suffered a propellant leak and ended up exploding over the Atlantic Ocean.
The goals of Flight 8 will be similar to those of Flight 7, SpaceX wrote in a mission description. SpaceX will try for another Super Heavy chopsticks catch — its third overall, if successful — and Ship will attempt to deploy mock Starlink satellites on its suborbital trajectory (but four this time, not 10).
Ship will again target a controlled splashdown off Western Australia. Eventually, SpaceX plans to snag the returning upper stage using the launch tower’s chopsticks as well, but the company isn’t ready to try that just yet.
