Starship's 10th Test Flight Likely In About 3 Weeks, Says SpaceX CEO Elon Musk

We might see the world's biggest rocket Starship launch as soon as the first week of August. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Monday that the next test flight is targeted in approximately three weeks. Reacting to a video from one of Starship's previous test flights, Musk wrote on X – "Launching again in ~3 weeks."

The next flight will be Starship's 10th overall and the fourth this year. Designed to be fully reusable, the rocket recently suffered a major setback as its second stage Ship exploded during a test on June 19, pushing the launch beyond July. SpaceX had stated that the explosion resulted from an anomaly in the pressurised nitrogen tank in the Ship's nosecone area.

Another concerning issue for SpaceX is the loss of launch vehicles on every test flight this year. While it lost the second stage on flight 7 and flight 8, both the Super Heavy Booster and second stage exploded mid-flight on May 28’s flight 9.

During a company presentation in May, Musk had said that SpaceX is also working on the bigger version 3 of Starship that will fly by the end of this year. It has several other ambitious objectives to complete by next year including on-orbit refuelling which will eventually be leveraged for long-duration missions to Mars.

However, the recurring setbacks seem to have significantly reduced the number of launches Musk had aimed. Last year, Musk reportedly told Kathy Leuders, Starbase general manager, that he wants to see Starship fly 25 times in 2025. Besides, SpaceX is also behind in developing rockets for NASA which intends to use them for Moon landings under the Artemis Program and has handed out nearly $4 billion worth of contracts.