SpaceX Starship blasts off in 10th test flight after repeated setbacks

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket blasted off Tuesday night in its 10th test flight — after having to abort the mission two days in a row and following repeated fiery mishaps that ended with the spacecraft exploding in the air.

The 400-foot-tall Starship rocket finally took off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas at 7:30 p.m. EST after being stalled by inclement weather on Monday and an issue with its ground systems on Sunday.

The Starship’s voyage soared a couple of hundred kilometers above Earth as it successfully detached its boosters and distributed all eight dummy satellites for the first time since the ninth test’s fiery descent.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cleared the way for the latest test to proceed following a probe of the ninth launch, which saw the Starship rocket fail to deploy dummy satellites and burn up as it plunged back toward Earth’s atmosphere. 

SpaceX officials said they identified the cause of the issue as a failure in the main fuel tank, which was patched ahead of further attempts.

Eager space gurus watching the feed live from Starbase, Texas erupted in repeated applause after each satellite was deployed during Tuesday’s run.

The long-awaited launch came after Sunday and Monday’s attempts were both postponed.

Sunday’s anticipated takeoff was nixed before the livestream even started due to a liquid oxygen leak.

Its next attempt, rescheduled for Monday, was thwarted by inclement weather.

Two minutes before Monday’s scheduled launch, the team noted that they would be holding at T-40 since they were “red on the range for weather.” Every other parameter, though, fell in the “green range.”

By Tuesday, all checks fell into the “green range” and the rocket was cleared for launch on time.

The 10th launch also comes more than two months after the spacecraft exploded into an enormous fireball during a routine test.

Prior to the failure of the ninth launch in May, the company saw its Starship rockets explode over the Atlantic Ocean during its seventh and eighth flights in January and March, respectively.

Despite the series of floundered attempts, the ninth test did see the first successful reuse of the Super Heavy booster rocket, showing signs of progress toward CEO Elon Musk’s desire to create a fully reusable rocket system.

Starship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, saving SpaceX significantly on cost and resources, which would aid the company in reaching its ultimate goal of pioneering travel to the Moon and Mars.

SpaceX has been tapped to handle NASA’s upcoming Artemis 3 mission to return to the Moon in 2027, with Musk eyeing his own launch for Mars come 2026 when Earth and the red planet are at their closest orbit.