Elon Musk’s Starship launch called off over pressure problems
- The biggest launch vehicle ever built had been expected to take off from southern Texas on Monday
- Musk says pressurant valve appeared to have been frozen
At 120 metres (394 feet) tall, the stainless-steel Starship is the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built and is intended to become fully reusable, taking passengers and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon or Mars.
The countdown continued as SpaceX practiced fuelling the rocket but did not launch it in a procedure known as a wet dress rehearsal.
Before the lift-off was aborted, an engineer working on a reusable rocket for a company in Beijing said a successful launch would give the United States at least a 20-year edge in the rocket industry and boost China’s investment in the private space sector and reusable rockets.
“I’m really impressed by the fact that both stages of Starship are reusable, which can dramatically reduce launch costs. In China, we are still working to fully master first-stage reusability,” the engineer said, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.