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SpaceX Starship stands on the launch pad ahead of a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas ABACA/PA Images

Elon Musk's SpaceX postpones launch of mammoth Starship rocket

The rocket was due to blast off from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas this afternoon.

LAST UPDATE | 17 Apr 2023

SPACEX HAS POSTPONED the first test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built.

Liftoff of the giant rocket was called off just minutes ahead of the scheduled launch time because of a pressurization issue, SpaceX officials said.

The rocket was due to blast off from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas this afternoon. 

Speaking in a live event on Twitter Spaces yesterday, Musk said it would be “the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket”.

“There’s a million ways this rocket could fail,” he added. “We’re going to be very careful and if we see anything that gives us concern, we’ll postpone.”

Musk said he wanted to “set expectations low” because “probably tomorrow will not be successful – if by successful one means reaching orbit”.

The US space agency Nasa has picked the Starship spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the Moon in late 2025 – a mission known as Artemis III – for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.

Starship consists of a 164-foot tall spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo that sits atop a 230-foot tall first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket.

Collectively referred to as Starship, the spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket have never flown in combination together, although there have been several sub-orbital test flights of the spacecraft alone.

If all had gone according to plan, the Super Heavy booster would have separated from Starship about three minutes after launch and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Starship, which has six engines of its own, would have continued to an altitude of nearly 150 miles, completing a near-circle of the Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean about 90 minutes after launch.

‘Multi-planet civilisation’

SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 Raptor engines on the first-stage booster of Starship in February.

The Super Heavy booster was anchored to the ground during the test-firing, called a static fire, to prevent it from lifting off.

Nasa will take astronauts to lunar orbit itself in November 2024 using its own heavy rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade.

Starship is both bigger and more powerful than SLS.

It generates 17 million pounds of thrust, more than twice that of the Saturn V rockets used to send Apollo astronauts to the Moon.

SpaceX foresees eventually putting a Starship into orbit, and then refueling it with another Starship so it can continue on a journey to Mars or beyond.

Musk said the goal is to make Starship reusable and bring down the price to a few million dollars per flight.

“In the long run – long run meaning, I don’t know, two or three years – we should achieve full and rapid reusability,” he said.

The eventual objective is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars and put humans on the “path to being a multi-planet civilisation,” Musk said.

“We are at this brief moment in civilisation where it is possible to become a multi-planet species,” he said. “That’s our goal. I think we’ve got a chance.”

© AFP 2023

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    Mute Madra
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    Apr 17th 2023, 7:50 AM

    It’s fairly impressive to be fair.

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    Mute Justin Flynn
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    Apr 17th 2023, 1:46 PM

    We spend billions putting rockets into space to get info on other planets…which is ironic considering we cant look after our own planet

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    Mute Ali Sam
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    Apr 17th 2023, 8:18 AM

    Payload 1 Ex BBC journalist

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    Mute Fuji Hakayito
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    Apr 17th 2023, 11:55 AM

    Musk is full of it.

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    Mute lumberjack
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    Apr 17th 2023, 3:45 PM

    @Fuji Hakayito: full of interesting revelations about how twitter was run previously, latest being that US federal agencies had full access to everyone’s private DM’s

    You gotta appreciate how he is fighting against unwarranted censorship for balanced views, democracy, free speech. And labeling any state funded media as such. Because states don’t seem to be encouraging open debate about their narratives from truth seeking individuals.
    Hate speech probably means stuff they hate you to talk openly about.
    And soon we will have texts alerting us to any misinformation that escapes from the ministry of truth. Thank goodness we have governments to do our thinking for us.

    Musk is a hero, fighting for truth, landing rockets backwards and trolling the naive

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    Mute Fuji Hakayito
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    Apr 17th 2023, 11:13 PM

    @lumberjack: my opinion of Musk has nothing to do with his acquisition of Twitter. I could care less about twitter.

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    Mute BLD Games
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    Apr 17th 2023, 10:38 AM

    This is probably going to end up like a lot of space x rocket endeavours. A great big giant fireworks display.

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    Mute GERARD KENNELLY
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    Apr 17th 2023, 2:32 PM

    billionaires have the best food, the best drink, the best clothes
    they sleep in 5 star beds
    they have everything

    Now they’re so suicide-ally bored they want to leave the planet . LOL

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    Mute Michael Dowling
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    Apr 17th 2023, 12:58 PM

    Technology is outdated now. AI will give us a better way for space travel. Just ask captain Kirk.

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    Mute David Stapleton
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    Apr 17th 2023, 2:29 PM

    If we ever do develop ships that are interstellar, the names they are giving these will be embarrassing.

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    Mute alan
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    Apr 17th 2023, 2:52 PM

    What is it dad? Well son, it’s a very complicated, gigantic rocket. Dad, what is a multi planet civilisation? Well son, you know those cowboy and Indian films your grandad used to talk about….

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    Mute Robert Halvey
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    Apr 17th 2023, 3:58 PM

    Musk is a con artist who knows how to grift huge amounts of money from governments. The way the so called twitter files where released was a scam . And being a privileged white south African man in his 50 should inform people of his beliefs.

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    Mute Brian
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    Apr 17th 2023, 4:24 PM

    @Robert Halvey: It’s okay to be white.

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    Mute Stephen McGrath
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    Apr 19th 2023, 4:40 AM

    #BANGSKI

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