SpaceX Postpones First Flight Of Starship At The Last Moment

STARSHIP, the world's most powerful launch vehicle, was set for a launch today from SpaceX's Starbase facility in Texas. However, the flight plan was dropped after issues with the pressure valve cropped up. Further, a minimum of 48 hours would be the wait time before attempting another launch.

The Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, referred to as Starship, is a "fully reusable transportation system" that can carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, Mars, Moon and further. It is the world's first launch vehicle that can carry up to 150 metric tonnes "fully reusable and 250 metric tonnes expendable." It can transport up to 100 people to distant places in space. The spacecraft has a height of 120m and a diameter of 9m.

Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, on Twitter, posted, "A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today." This came an hour later he posted that the "Cryogenic propellant load of Starship is underway," with the liftoff expected to take place in an hour. In a series of tweets, he adds, "Learned a lot today, now offloading propellant, retrying in a few days."

"Standing down from today’s flight test attempt; team is working towards next available opportunity" SpaceX tweeted. The clock paused at T - 40 seconds before the launch and it was described as a wet dress rehearsal by the SpaceX team. With Starship, SpaceX aims to build cities on Mars, as is evident from the product page of the rocket.