Due to a problem at the launch site, Elon Musk’s parent company, SpaceX, has called off a planned test flight of its starship megarocket.
SpaceX announced that it was resuming its 10th test flight about 30 minutes before the scheduled liftoff on Sunday at its Texas launch facility to “allow time to troubleshoot a problem with ground systems.”
On Monday, SpaceX announced that it would attempt the launch once more.
The launch failure is just the latest in a long line of SpaceX’s botched missions.
Mid-flight explosions occurred during tests of the rocket’s upper stage in January, March, and May, while a “static fire” test in June caused the vehicle to explode on the launchpad.
Although the spacecraft’s upper stage has yet to be reached, SpaceX has not yet been able to transport a payload to space or bring it back to the launch pad.
Musk’s goal of colonizing Mars requires the 403-foot (123-metre) spacecraft, and NASA intends to use a modified version of the vehicle for its planned crewed missions to the Moon.
The Starship upper stage and the Super Heavy booster would have separated dozens of miles in altitude if SpaceX’s most recent launch had proceeded as planned.
In order to test a backup engine configuration, Super Heavy, which has previously landed on its launchpad in giant mechanical arms, would have made a soft water landing in the Gulf of Mexico.
The starship intended to briefly ignite its own engines before going further into space, where it would have attempted to launch its first batch of mock Starlink satellites and restart an engine while traveling on a suborbital path around the planet.
Source: Aljazeera
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