SpaceX on Monday morning scrubbed its first launch attempt of its Starship, after dealing with a technical issue.
“A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today,” said SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. “Learned a lot today, now offloading propellant, retrying in a few days,” added Musk.
Musk had hinted a 3-day delay was possible, pushing the official launch date to the coveted 4/20 date, aligning with the cannabis culture slang.
On Monday afternoon, SpaceX announced it is now targeting as soon as Thursday, April 20 for the first flight test of Starship and Super Heavy from Starbase in Texas. There will be a 62 minute launch window that opens at 8:28 a.m. CT and close at 9:30 a.m. CT (6:29am PDT to 7:30am PDT; 9:29am EDT to 10:30am EDT).
“Starship is a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond. With a test such as this, success is measured by how much we can learn, which will inform and improve the probability of success in the future as SpaceX rapidly advances development of Starship,” explains SpaceX.
A live webcast will start about 45 minutes before the flight. Let’s hope we can watch this candle get lit up and blazed on 4/20.
