SpaceX plans to try again on Tuesday with Starship rocket launch. Here’s how to watch

Get ready for another spectacular rocket launch from SpaceX's Starbase site in Texas.

By Trevor Mogg Published August 17, 2025

Starbase Live: 24/7 Starship & Super Heavy Development From SpaceX's Boca Chica Facility

[UPDATE: SpaceX has scrubbed Monday’s launch of the Starship — the second scrub in two days. It’s now targeting Tuesday, August 26 for launch. Full details below.]

SpaceX is close to launching its enormous Starship rocket for the 10th time.

The spaceflight company has announced that it’s targeting Tuesday, August 26, for the highly anticipated launch.

Comprising the upper stage Starship spacecraft and first-stage Super Heavy booster, the rocket will launch from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas.

Once fully operational, NASA and SpaceX hope to use the 121-meter-tall Starship rocket for crew and cargo missions to the moon and possibly even Mars. First up, NASA wants to use a modified version of the spacecraft to return humans to the lunar surface in the Artemis III mission, which is currently set for 2027. But with testing of the Starship ongoing, that date may slip.

SpaceX has designed the Starship to be a fully reusable rocket, allowing it to use both the booster and spacecraft for multiple missions, thereby saving massively on mission costs.

How to watch

SpaceX is targeting 6:30 p.m. (7:30 p.m. ET) on Tuesday, August 26, for the 10th Starship launch from the company’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica, Texas.

The livestream, which will begin about half an hour before launch, will be available on SpaceX’s X account. The NASASpaceflight YouTube channel is also livestreaming proceedings. We’ve embedded its feed at the top of this page.

Technical issues or adverse weather conditions could prompt SpaceX to launch later, so be sure to check back here — or SpaceX’s X account — for the latest information.

What to expect

Whether you’re there in person or watching online, you’ll witness the world’s most powerful rocket climbing skyward, generating around 17 million pounds of thrust as the huge rocket leaves the launchpad.

SpaceX will livestream the launch and early part of the flight, with cameras attached to both the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft tracking the mission’s progress.

Unlike some earlier Starship flights, the Super Heavy will not be returning to the launch tower after liftoff. Instead, cameras will capture footage of both parts of the vehicle coming down in their respective splashdown sites.

One more thing …

SpaceX chief Elon Musk has promised to give an update on the company’s plans for the Starship shortly before the 10th flight takes place. The event will likely involve Musk speaking from a stage at Starbase. We’ll update here when SpaceX confirms a start time for the event.

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Space

NASA built the Roman Space Telescope to study dark matter, but it can also help protect Earth from killer asteroids

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope wasn't built to hunt asteroids, but it turns out to be great at it.

Nancy Grace Roman space telescope.

NASA is about to launch a telescope built to unlock some of the universe's biggest mysteries, and it turns out that same design could help protect Earth along the way.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch from Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 2026, with a primary mission focused on studying dark matter and dark energy - the invisible forces shaping galaxies and cosmic expansion. Researchers now say its unique design also makes it unexpectedly effective at spotting dangerous asteroids headed our way (via MIT Technology Review).

Space

Space is becoming Bezos and Musk’s next data center site, and we have every reason to worry

The AI boom is coming for the night sky

How Vast's space station will look in orbit.

AI data centers already consume vast amounts of electricity and water on Earth, so Silicon Valley has begun looking somewhere considerably more spacious... literally.

Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, along with several other companies, have proposed enormous constellations of satellites designed to operate as orbital data centers. However, environmental groups and former space officials are now warning that putting them into orbit at the proposed scale could have severe consequences for Earth's atmosphere and the night sky.

Space

The first possible exomoon is here, and it makes our Moon look hilariously tiny

Scientists may have found the first exomoon, except this one is the size of Jupiter

This artist’s concept depicts a potential volcanic moon between the exoplanet WASP-49 b, left, and its parent star. New evidence indicating that a massive sodium cloud observed near WASP-49 b is produced by neither the planet nor the star has prompted researchers to ask if its origin could be an exomoon.

We have already discovered more than 6,000 planets outside of our immediate neighborhood. Yet, finding a moon orbiting one of those distant worlds has proved considerably harder. Astronomers may finally have something close to the real deal, but this particular object stretches the word “moon” almost beyond recognition.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, researchers detected strong evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Further observations are still necessary to confirm the discovery, but it could become the first confidently detected natural satellite outside our solar system. There is still one tiny complication though. This moon is apparently massive.