SpaceX to launch its Starship rocket on next test flight, after a fiery explosion ended the last one

SpaceX pushed back the planned test flight of its Starship megarocket on Monday after issues cropped up in the final seconds before liftoff.

Mission controllers paused operations with 40 seconds remaining in the countdown, as engineers worked through technical problems with the Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft. They subsequently made the call to stand down.

SpaceX officials said they could try again as soon as Tuesday evening, but no official time has been announced yet.

The upcoming flight will be Starship’s eighth. During its last outing, about six weeks ago, SpaceX lost communication with Starship about eight minutes into the flight, and the vehicle’s upper stage blew up over the Atlantic Ocean.

The explosion sent debris streaking through the sky. Dust and small pieces rained over parts of Turks and Caicos, but local authorities said there were no injuries.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration launched an investigation after the accident and grounded the rocket during the probe. On Friday, the agency cleared Starship to return to flight but said its investigation remains open.

SpaceX’s own investigation found that the likely root cause was leaking propellant in a section of Starship known as the “attic,” which is located between the bottom of the liquid oxygen tank and the rear heat shield.

The leak likely sparked “sustained fires” that eventually caused “all but one of Starship’s engines to execute controlled shut down sequences,” SpaceX said in an update last week.

The company said it stopped receiving data just over eight minutes into the test flight, and that the vehicle broke apart three minutes after that.

SpaceX said it has since made “several hardware and operational changes” to Starship’s upper stage, but the company did not specify what those upgrades were.

The FAA, which signed off on the upcoming flight, is one of many federal agencies that the Trump administration has targeted for budget and personnel cuts. Reuters reported that the Department of Government Efficiency, led by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, has infiltrated FAA facilities and that SpaceX engineers have been working at the agency as special government employees.

It’s unclear whether DOGE employees have had a presence within the FAA’s commercial spaceflight division, which oversees private companies like SpaceX, but some lawmakers and critics, including Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., have nonetheless raised concerns about Musk’s conflicts of interest.

On the eighth test flight, Starship will attempt to release four mock Starlink satellites. If successful, that would mark the first time the vehicle has deployed a payload.

The plan also calls for the megarocket’s hulking first stage to return to the launchpad after separating from the second stage, and for SpaceX to “catch” it there using giant mechanical arms on the rocket’s launch tower. SpaceX completed that part as intended during the January flight, leading the company to deem the test a partial success.

The catch maneuver is a key part of SpaceX’s goal to make Starship a fully reusable rocket system.

If all goes according to plan in the upcoming test flight, the vehicle’s upper stage will fly for about an hour before splashing down in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia.

Starship is the most powerful rocket ever developed, measuring 400 feet tall. The system has two parts: a first-stage booster known as Super Heavy and an upper-stage spacecraft.

It is expected to play a crucial part in NASA’s efforts to return to the moon. The agency selected SpaceX to carry astronauts to the lunar surface during NASA’s planned Artemis III mission, which is scheduled to launch in 2027. Musk has also said Starship could be used for future missions to Mars.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com