On Thursday, SpaceX will attempt a second time to launch Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built. With the goal of sending astronauts to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The launch of the massive rocket on Monday was called off less than 10 minutes before the scheduled time due to a pressurisation problem in the first-stage booster.
The next window for launch from Starbase, SpaceX’s spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. Begins on Thursday at 8:28 a.m. Central Time (1328 GMT) and will last around an hour, according to SpaceX.
Risky Initial test
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, has sought to downplay expectations for the risky initial test flight of starship. Casting some question on whether the launch will go place on Thursday.
“The team is working around the clock on many issues,” Musk said late Tuesday in a tweet. “Maybe on 4/20, maybe not.”
For the first time since the Apollo programme ended in 1972. NASA has chosen the Starship spacecraft to take men to the Moon in late 2025 (a mission known as Artemis III).
A 164-foot (50-meter) tall spaceship designed to carry crew and cargo rides atop a 230-foot tall first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket.
The 33 huge Raptor engines on the first-stage booster were successfully tested by SpaceX in February. But the Starship spaceship and the Super Heavy rocket have never flown together.
The integrated test flight will evaluate their combined performance.
The launch on Monday was cancelled due to a frozen pressure valve on the Super Heavy booster. And SpaceX had to postpone another attempt for 48 hours in order to recycle the liquid methane and liquid oxygen that powers the rocket.
Musk had previously warned that delays and technical concerns were likely.
“It’s a very risky flight,” he said. “It’s the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket.
“There’s a million ways this rocket could fail,” Musk said. “We’re going to be very careful and if we see anything that gives us concern, we’ll postpone.”