On Thursday, SpaceX called off a test flight of its powerful Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster at the company’s spaceport in South Texas. The launch team aimed to launch the more than 400-foot-tall rocket at 5:45 pm local time (6:45 pm EDT; 22:45 UTC).
The countdown proceeded smoothly throughout the day, culminating in the loading of over 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen into the two-stage rocket. However, the computers controlling the countdown called an abort during the Super Heavy booster’s engine startup sequence.
SpaceX scrubbed the launch attempt, and engineers began preparations to drain the rocket’s propellant tanks. Officials did not immediately announce when they plan to try to launch again.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, posted on his social media platform X that the company might not be able to launch during the next available opportunity on Friday evening. “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” Musk wrote. “Now offloading propellant. Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days.”
Later Thursday evening, Musk added that ground teams at Starbase will replace two of the Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster.
Engine Issues and Abort Sequence
The Super Heavy booster has 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines, each capable of generating over half a million pounds of thrust. The engines are supposed to ignite in a staggered sequence after activation of the launch pad’s water-cooled flame diverter, designed to protect the launch facility from the intense heat and vibrations during liftoff of the world’s most powerful rocket.
SpaceX officials did not say how many engines failed to start during the ignition sequence, but a graphic of engine status on SpaceX’s live video stream indicated four of the 33 engines never ignited. The engines on this Starship and Super Heavy come from SpaceX’s third-generation Raptor design.
Previous Test Flights and Goals for Flight 13
The test flight—the 13th full-scale Starship launch—is the second to use the Raptor 3 engine flying on SpaceX’s upgraded Starship Version 3 rocket. The Starship V3 rocket and Raptor 3 engine debuted on a mostly successful test flight in May.
SpaceX’s goals for Flight 13 of Starship include testing several changes intended to overcome the engine issues on Flight 12 two months ago. One of the corrective actions involves modifying the engine startup sequence on the Super Heavy booster during its flip maneuver after separating from the Starship upper stage a few minutes after liftoff.
Future Plans and Goals
The company already demonstrated this with Starship V2, but not with Starship V3. One of the six Raptor engines on Starship’s upper stage also shut down prematurely on the last test flight. The ship overcame the engine failure and continued flying toward a pinpoint water landing in the Indian Ocean, but SpaceX had to skip an attempt to reignite a Raptor engine in space.
A successful test flight with the next Starship would help clear the way for SpaceX to move to an orbital flight, a step toward using Starship for Starlink satellite launches and orbital refueling tests. This, in turn, would move Starship closer to readiness for flights to the Moon in support of NASA’s Artemis lunar lander program.
Source: Original article