SpaceX achieved the first flight of a taller, more powerful version of its Starship rocket within 40 seconds of its launch on Thursday, but a frustrating issue with the launch tower kept the vehicle grounded for at least another day.
Clouds and rain showers cleared the area around SpaceX’s South Texas launch site Thursday afternoon, leaving mostly sunny skies over the Starship launch pad. SpaceX pushed back the launch time by an hour, but once the propellants started loading the rocket, the countdown continued smoothly.
That was true, at least, until the countdown clock stopped 40 seconds before liftoff. The launch team tried repeatedly to restart the countdown, only to have the computer controlling the launch sequence stop the clock again. There were only five holds before SpaceX aborted the launch attempt.
“It sounds like we’re not going to be able to fix this issue in time today, so we’re going to be behind the launch,” said SpaceX official Dan Huot, who hosted the company’s livestream Thursday. “We completely loaded the car. We hit a few different stops while doing this number.”
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk linked the scrubber’s launch tower to a non-retractable hydraulic pin in the umbilical arm that connects it to the rocket. “If it can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow,” Musk wrote on X. The 90-minute launch window will open at 5:30 PM CDT (22:30 UTC) on Friday.
The upcoming Starship test flight will mark the first flight from a new launch pad at Starbase, Texas, a year-old city that includes SpaceX’s South Texas test site near the US-Mexico border. This will be the 12th full-scale test flight of the Starship and its Super Heavy booster to date, and is being called the first SpaceX Starship Version 3 to use an overhauled design. The Starship V3 39 features numerous changes, including a more efficient, higher-power Raptor engine, a redesigned propulsion system, three larger, smaller, and obsolete four-bladed engines. ring is permanently attached to the top of the Super Heavy booster.
