SpaceX has rescheduled for Thursday the first test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond, after a technical glitch forced a halt to the countdown.
A planned liftoff Monday of the gigantic rocket was called off less than 10 minutes ahead of the scheduled launch because of a pressurization issue in the first-stage booster, SpaceX said.
The private space company continued with the countdown in what it called a “wet dress rehearsal,” stopping the clock with 10 seconds to go, just before the massive engines on the booster were to have been ignited.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk said a frozen pressure valve forced a scrub of the launch, which had been planned for 8:20 am Central Time (1320 GMT) from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas.
“Learned a lot today, now offloading propellant, retrying in a few day,” Musk tweeted.
Before announcing Thursday as the new target for liftoff, SpaceX had said the inaugural flight would be delayed for at least 48 hours to recycle the liquid methane and liquid oxygen that fuels the rocket.বিস্তারিত