Yesterday was meant to be the triumphant return of the world’s largest rocket to the skies, after it dramatically exploded in its last test flight.
But the planned launch in Texas was called off, and SpaceX’s Starship did not get off the ground.
It follows the huge rocket exploding in January, minutes into a test flight which was supposed to see it deliver dummy satellites into orbit for a practice run.
Instead, fiery debris rained down over the populated Carribbean islands of Turks and Caicos, with residents wondering if they were under attack and later finding bits of rocket on the ground and in the sea.
So Elon Musk probably felt like he was due a win for the rocket he hopes will reach Mars as early as 2026.
The cancelled launch at 6.30pm last night followed another planned launch on February 28, which was also scheduled without an official reason being provided.
In a statement on the lack of action last night, SpaceX said: ‘Standing down from today’s flight test attempt. The Starship team is determining the next best available opportunity to fly.’
After the last launch went with too much of a bang, the company said they had made ‘several hardware and operational changes’ to make it more reliable.
They had been aiming to achieve much the same goals as the failed flight with this one, including the first deployment of payloads.
The company is also still focusing on experimenting with re-entry, hoping to catch the rocket booster on ‘chopsticks’ for the third time.
It is hoped that the rocket will become fully reusable, so experiments will also focus on how to safely bring the upper part of the rocket back to the launch site on another tower nearby.
The statement said: ‘We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and booster return will only take place if conditions are right.’
If the booster comes back as planned, there will be sonic booms in the surrounding area as it slows down ready for landing.
Elon Musk has said he hopes to send uncrewed Starship rockets to Mars when the Red Planet is next close enough to Earth for it to be feasible, which will be in 2026.
So it’s a fairly tight window to get all the issues ironed out.
It has been a busy few weeks for the world’s richest man, who has welcomed at least one more child, as well as wielded a chainsaw on stage while accusing Democrats of treason at a conservative gathering in Washington DC, while also dealing with large protests against his other company Tesla.
His company xAI has also just released its latest version of large language model Grok, which is programmed to have phone sex with users, among many other capabilities.
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