Launching the most potent rocket ever into space has been delayed for at least 48 hours.
SpaceX, the company of American entrepreneur Elon Musk, has constructed the Starship vehicle.
Monday’s unmanned mission was canceled minutes before its scheduled launch from Boca Chica, Texas.
Musk tweeted that a frozen “pressurant valve” appears to be the source of the problem. However, SpaceX could attempt again later this week.
Starship is nearly 120 meters (400 feet) tall and is intended to have nearly double the thrust of any previous rocket.
The objective is to dispatch the vehicle’s upper stage eastward, completing almost a full circuit of the globe.
Before the postponement of the launch, Mr. Musk had urged everyone to temper their expectations. On its maiden voyage, it is not uncommon for a rocket to experience some sort of failure.
“This is the first launch of a very complicated, enormous rocket, so it may fail. We will be extremely cautious, and if anything causes us concern, we will delay the launch,” he said at a Twitter Spaces event.
Thousands of spectators flocked to the Gulf of Mexico coastlines to witness the spectacle.
Elon Musk hopes that Starship will entirely disrupt the rocket industry.
It’s intended for swift and complete reuse. He envisions sending people and satellites into orbit multiple times per day, similar to how jetliners traverse the Atlantic Ocean.
He believes the vehicle could herald an era of interstellar travel for the average person.
The upper portion of the Starship had previously been tested on short flights, but this would have been the first time it would have been launched with its lower stage.
In February, this enormous booster, appropriately named Super Heavy, was launched from its launch mount. However, the engines were throttled back to half their capacity on that occasion.
If everything goes according to plan for another launch this week, SpaceX will strive for 90 percent thrust, which means the stage should deliver close to 70 meganewtons. This is equivalent to the thrust required to launch nearly 100 Concorde supersonic airliners.
If all goes well, the 33 bottom engines of the methane-fueled rocket will fire for 2 minutes and 49 seconds. The Starship will then ascend and head downrange across the Gulf.
At that point, the two halves of the rocket will separate, and the upper section, the spacecraft, will continue to propel itself using its engines for an additional 6 minutes and 23 seconds.
It should be over the Caribbean and cruising through space more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) above the Earth’s surface at this time.
SpaceX plans to vertically land the Super Heavy booster near the Texas coast, hovering above the Gulf of Mexico. It will then be permitted to fall and submerge.
After nearly a full rotation, the spacecraft will reenter the Earth’s atmosphere north of the Hawaiian Islands. It has protective tiling to withstand the extreme heat it will experience during its descent.
A bellyflop into the ocean is scheduled to occur approximately one and a half hours after launch.
Long-term, SpaceX anticipates that both the booster and the spacecraft will perform controlled landings to be refueled and relaunched.
At Boca Chica, the company has been experimenting with various methods for constructing steel stages.
Several models are awaiting their turn to take flight.
Nasa, the American space agency, was likely one of the most intrigued observers on Monday.
SpaceX is receiving nearly $3 billion to create a Starship variant to transport astronauts to the moon.
Elon Musk wants to explore the Solar System farther, according to USC astronautical engineering professor Garrett Reisman.
The SpaceX advisor and former astronaut told, “He sees Starship as potentially another massive paradigm shift, an incredible increase in capability – the capability to truly transport large numbers of people to Mars.”
“There are many potential benefits, but there are also many potential risks because this is so challenging. Nobody has ever constructed a rocket of this size, which is twice as large as the next largest.”
