The Starship, a vehicle created by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, was scheduled to launch on an uncrewed mission from Boca Chica, Texas on Monday. However, the launch was cancelled minutes before it was set to take off due to a frozen “pressurant valve”, according to Musk. SpaceX is considering rescheduling the launch later this week.
The Starship stands at a height of almost 120m (400ft) and has almost double the thrust of any rocket ever created. Its upper stage is intended to complete almost one circuit of the globe. Prior to the scheduled launch, Musk had urged people to temper their expectations, noting that it’s not uncommon for a rocket to experience some form of failure during its first launch.
Thousands of spectators had gathered along the Gulf of Mexico coast to witness the event, which Musk hopes will completely revolutionize the rocket business. The Starship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable and Musk envisions using it to transport people and satellites to orbit multiple times a day, similar to a jet airliner crossing the Atlantic. He also believes that the vehicle could pave the way for interplanetary travel for ordinary people.
The top segment of the Starship had previously been tested on short hops, but this launch would have been the first time it would go up with its lower-stage, the Super Heavy booster. SpaceX aims to reach 90% thrust during the launch, equivalent to the force needed to propel almost 100 Concorde supersonic airliners during takeoff.
If everything goes according to plan, the Starship will rise up and head down range across the Gulf, with the 33 engines on the bottom of the methane-fuelled booster burning for two minutes and 49 seconds. The two halves of the rocket will separate, and the ship will then push on with its own engines for an additional six minutes and 23 seconds, travelling over the Caribbean and cruising through space more than 100km (62 miles) above the planet’s surface.
The Super Heavy booster will attempt to fly back to near the Texan coast and come down vertically, hovering just above the Gulf’s waters before toppling over and sinking. The ship will aim to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere after almost a full revolution of the Earth and land in the Pacific, north of the Hawaiian islands. A bellyflop into the ocean is timed to occur 90 minutes after lift-off.
