SpaceX Starship test launch postponed at the last minute. Elon Musk to try again on April 20

Elon Musk's SpaceX was supposed to make history on Monday, April 17, with the first scheduled test flight of Starship, the largest rocket ever made which one day is expected to carry humans to the moon, Mars, and beyond. However, the test launch got postponed at the last minute due to a technical glitch. 

Fortunately for SpaceX fans and eager viewers, the wait is not too long. SpaceX will try to launch Starship again on April 20. April 20 is also the day Elon Musk's Twitter will remove legacy blue ticks on the platform. 

What happened? 

• The test launch was scheduled in South Texas over the Gulf of Mexico on Monday morning. 
• However, 10 minutes before the liftoff, Elon Musk tweeted that a valve appeared frozen, resulting in the launch being cancelled. 

Learned a lot today, now offloading propellant, retrying in a few days …

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 17, 2023

• The frozen valve occurred in the spacecraft's lower part called the super-heavy booster, which has 33 engines fitted to help liftoff the rocket from the ground. 
• Paulo Lozano, director of MIT's space propulsion laboratory told NPR that SpaceX is using methane as the choice of fuel instead of hydrogen because it is cheaper to produce and easier to handle.
• The frozen valve could have been due to the choice of fuel as "methane and the rocket's oxidizer oxygen needs to be chilled to very low temperatures". 

Tempering expectations:

Elon Musk had already sought to temper expectations about the historic launch.

What is Starship?

• Starship is the biggest rocket ever made to this date. The stainless-steel rocket stands at nearly 400ft tall; taller than the Statue of Great Liberty or even London's Big Ben.

How big is the SpaceX Starship rocket? A visual comparison pic.twitter.com/eVtB6WExMO

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) April 17, 2023

• It is also designed to be THE most powerful rocket ever, with almost double the thrust power. 
• SpaceX plans to one day carry humans to the Moon, Mars, and beyond on Starship. 

What are the business implications?

• However, not all things about Starship's test launch are linked to the far-away future ambitions of colonising planets. 
• NASA is paying SpaceX $3 billion to build another version of Starship to send it to the moon, though the project is still several years away. And NASA is among the keen observers of the test launch.
• Starship can also be used to launch a number of Starlink satellites, which is now an important part of SpaceX's business future.
• SpaceX also needs funding to keep developing Starlink and Starship projects.

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 pic.twitter.com/2tf4jx3qRL

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 17, 2023 

• NPR reports that if the launch were to fail or fall way behind schedule (read: why retest is slated just days away) it could affect SpaceX's business interests in the current financial climate. 
• And success in Starship's case isn't all about a successful test and flight. Elon Musk says if the rocket gets just far away enough from the launch pad before things go wrong, that would be a success too.  

• SpaceX and Musk really don't want the launch pad to be destroyed in the process as it would take months to rebuild the infrastructure. 

What is Starship's flight path during the test?

On April 20, SpaceX will again test launch Starship. The video below shows the planned mission for the test launch:

🚀Starship Orbital Flight Test Flight Path🚀

At T-3:30 until #Starship liftoff Monday 2023-04-17, here's the #Starship Ship 24 (S24) flight path around the earth, and the path of Super Heavy Booster 7 (B7) doing a boost back burn into the Gulf of Mexico.pic.twitter.com/XEa5QDdMt0

— Starbase Watcher 🚀 (@watchstarbase) April 17, 2023

• The lower part of the spacecraft, the super-heavy booster, is expected to liftoff and fly for two and half minutes and separate from the upper Starship spacecraft. 
• The super-heavy booster will then fall into the ocean, while Starship will use its own engines to propel itself out of Earth's atmosphere. 
• Starship will then continue to finish one full orbit of Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down off the coast near Hawaii. 
• The mission is to take 1.5 hours after liftoff. 

Elon Musk envisions Starship disrupting the rocket business, but the test launch will be a test of how far the ambitions are able to liftoff from the ground.