THE test launch of most powerful rocket ever built has been postponed, leaving hundreds of thousands excited onlookers disappointed.
Elon Musk‘s SpaceX, the company behind the rocket, said there was a pressurisation issue after a pressure valve froze.
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Around 250,000 people tuned into Nasa’s livestream of the test launch before it was suddenly cancelled.
It’s not all bad news for the SpaceX team, however.
The company are now treating today as a wet dress rehearsal, which simulates every stage of a rocket launch without the vehicle actually leaving the pad.
Musk has said they will try the launch again in the next few days.
There had previously been speculation that Musk was aiming for 4/20 as the date for the test launch, in an homage to his former cannabis usage.
The $3billion mega-rocket Starship has been designed as the vehicle to make humans interplanetary.
The 33-engine, nearly 400-feet tall, rocket is the eccentric billionaire’s biggest feat yet.
The vehicle is about a year old, but SpaceX has big plans for the rocket.
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It is expected to take humans to the Moon through Nasa’s Artemis mission in 2025, and eventually to Mars sometime in the 2030s.
The Starship is designed to transport up to 100 people from Earth to the Moon and Mars, so will eventually have its interior kitted out to suit humans on months-long space voyages.
“It’s the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket, so it might not launch. We’re going to be very careful, and if we see anything that gives us concern, we will postpone the launch,” Musk told a Twitter Spaces event.
“If we do launch, I would consider anything that does not result in the destruction of the launch pad itself to be a win.”
Musk had already expressed doubt with the test launch’s success, saying Starship has a 50% chance of reaching orbit at the Morgan Stanley 2023 Technology, Media and Telecommunications conference last month.
“This is a very difficult programme,” Musk said at the time, adding that “the rocket is roughly two-and-a-half times the thrust of the Saturn V, so if or when it reaches orbit it’ll be by far the largest rocket to reach orbit.
“The key to expanding life beyond Earth is a fully and rapidly reusable orbital rocket.
“This is a very hard problem given the constraints… Earth has a thick atmosphere and strong gravity, it is only barely possible to do this, that is why it has not been done before.”
Musk said there was “hopefully above a 50 per cent chance” of reaching orbit, acknowledging there was a significant chance the test launch will end in a fiery explosion.
The debut orbital launch of the next-generation spacecraft was set to take place at the company’s Starbase facility in Texas.
Starship was never planned to survive today’s mission, with SpaceX and the US’ aerospace regulator the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) agreeing on a splash down with no recovery.
The rocket was, instead, expected to ‘belly flop’ into the pacific ocean.
All rocket launches in the US are bound by environmental standards set by the FAA, which had previously stood in the way of the 33-engine rocket.
Starship was expected to join its predecessors at the bottom of the pacific, where old rocket parts now act as artificial coral reefs for marine life.
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