The first launch of Starship, the world’s largest rocket, will not take place on Monday due to a technical problem that arose in the final minutes of preparations, SpaceX announced.
• Also read: SpaceX is aiming for a first test flight of the world’s largest rocket on Monday
• Also read: SpaceX is preparing for the first orbital flight of its Starship mega rocket
The launch of this giant was planned from the Starbase space base in far south Texas in the United States.
However, SpaceX teams kept the countdown running and simulated launch operations in the form of a dress rehearsal, stopping just before the scheduled launch time.
Fallback appointments are possible during the week. “We anticipate at least 48 hours before we can attempt this test flight again,” a SpaceX employee said during the company’s live video.
“A valve appears to be frozen,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk previously tweeted.
With a height of 120 meters, Starship belongs to the category of super-heavy launch vehicles capable of delivering more than 100 tons of cargo into orbit. Its launch performance must be more than twice that of the legendary Saturn V, the Apollo rocket of the moon program (111 meters).
It is intended for trips to the moon and Mars.
Fueled by liquid oxygen and methane, this black and silver behemoth has never flown in its full configuration with its super-powerful first stage called Super Heavy.
Only the vehicle’s second stage, the Starship spacecraft, which gives its name to the entire rocket, conducted suborbital tests (at an altitude of about 10 km).
Monday’s flight plan was as follows: About three minutes after takeoff, Super Heavy was scheduled to break loose and fall back into Gulf of Mexico waters. The Starship ship then had to continue its ascent on its own, completing a little less than one orbit before falling back into the Pacific Ocean.
However, this is the “best scenario”, SpaceX had stated, since the outcome of the test was uncertain.
“Tomorrow probably won’t be a success if we mean reaching orbit,” Elon Musk told his followers via Twitter on Sunday evening.
“If we see anything that concerns us, we will reschedule the flight,” he warned.
During the launch attempt, the billionaire simply wished he wouldn’t destroy the launch pad.
His fear: that one of Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor engines would explode and cause a “domino effect” by spreading to others. “It would certainly take several months to rebuild the launch pad if we melt it down,” he said.
The main goal is to collect as much data as possible for the following prototypes.
Completely reusable
This first flight should be followed very closely by NASA. The US Space Agency has chosen this spacecraft to land its astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than half a century during the Artemis 3 mission, officially scheduled for 2025.
The astronauts will lift off separately aboard NASA’s new mega-rocket, SLS (98 meters tall, with nearly twice the launch power planned for Starship).
They will travel to the moon in the Orion capsule, which will then dock with the Starship spacecraft, previously launched into lunar orbit. He will bring the astronauts to the surface of the moon. Artemis 3 cannot take place without this lander.
In the future, the rocket must be fully reusable. Super Heavy must return to land against his launch tower, equipped with weapons to catch him.
The spaceship must return to earth with retro rockets. This maneuver had been attempted several times in 2020 and 2021. Several prototypes had then descended too quickly and hit the ground with impressive explosions – before one of them finally managed to land.
The idea of a reusable launcher, Elon Musk’s grand strategy, is to lower prices. Each Starship flight could end up costing as little as “a few million” dollars, he said Sunday.
The rocket already has customers: its first manned flight is planned in collaboration with American billionaire Jared Isaacman.
Another billionaire, Japanese Yusaku Maezawa, and American entrepreneur Dennis Tito (the first space tourist in history) have also announced that they will be boarding to orbit the moon.
But for Elon Musk, Starship is above all the ship that should enable humanity to become multiplanetary: “We have an arduous journey of two or three years ahead of us (…), but in the end we should have something that allows us , to set a base on the moon and to build on Mars.”