SpaceX is preparing for Starship's 13th test flight. Starship is still experiencing issues during ascent and has yet to successfully launch anything from orbit. This test flight will only be sub-orbital.
Is Starship's design flawed? Is it too heavy to achieve its goals? Rocket development is notoriously time-consuming, but SpaceX promised it had cracked that code.
NASA selected SpaceX's Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to transport astronauts from lunar orbit down to the Moon and back. Starship had a tremendous set of goals to achieve before taking on the Moon. Including mastering space-based & lunar refuelling & becoming a crew-capable craft that can land on the Moon, refuel there, and take off again with people on board.
Does any of this have any chance of happening soon if Starship is more fundamentally flawed and cannot reliably reach orbit with cargo?
SpaceX's 1st Starship test flight since going public is set to launch
Well they also aren't aiming for orbit because they are legally not allowed to do so. Their flight license only allows for suborbital until they can show they can reliably control the craft until touchdown. They don't want something up in orbit that might come down at any random place. With a suborbital path, even if they lose control early (which they have done a couple of times) the crash path will be known. Obviously they select a trajectory with a minimal chance of hitting anything.
Once they show the craft can be controlled reliably, they will get a flight clearance for an orbital attempt. The booster has plenty of delta-V, so no doubt in my mind something will make it up into orbit. No telling what state the ship might be in once it gets there tho and if they can get it down in one piece and on target.
The development plan they chose is especially difficult, because they are changing stuff all the time. This makes it very hard to prove the thing is actually reliable. With a dozen critical changes that might kill the entire vehicle at any time, I expect getting a license would be pretty hard. However with the huge amounts of de-regulation and corruption going on these days, I'm sure Musk will get his license if he wants it.