Americas

Home page

Americas

SpaceX postpones debut flight of Starship rocket, citing frozen valve

17 April 2023 19:02 (UTC +04:00)

Elon Musk's SpaceX called off the highly anticipated debut launch of its newly-combined Starship cruise vessel and Super Heavy rocket in the final minutes of countdown due to a frozen valve, delaying the uncrewed test flight for at least two days, APA reports citing Reuters.

The two-stage rocketship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 m) high, was originally slated for blast-off from the SpaceX "Starbase" facility at Boca Chica, Texas, during a two-hour launch window that began at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT).

But the California-based space company announced in a live webcast that it was scrubbing the planned 90-minute flight into space for a minimum of 48 hours, citing a frozen pressurization valve in the lower-stage rocket booster. That would make Wednesday the next available launch window for the mission.

SpaceX officials on the webcast said ground teams would nevertheless continue pre-flight fueling of the rocket until the last seconds of Monday's countdown, turning the canceled launch bid into a "wet dress rehearsal" for the next attempt.