Starship: 'Frozen Valve' Halts Elon Musk's Rocket Launch
The most powerful rocket ever developed in history had its launch, scheduled for this Monday (17/04), suspended at the last minute.
Known as Starship, it was built by the company SpaceX, owned by businessman Elon Musk.
According to Musk, the reason for the interruption of the launch was a "frozen valve".
"A pressurization valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon there will be no launch today," Musk wrote on Twitter.
Thousands of people gathered on beaches along the Gulf of Mexico in hopes of witnessing the historic event.
The rocket is almost 120 meters tall and is designed to have nearly twice the thrust of any rocket ever built.
The launch — without a crew — was scheduled for 10 am (8 am local time) and would be made from the base in Boca Chica, in the US state of Texas.
The aim is to send the rocket's upper stage eastward to complete nearly a loop around the globe.
Before the launch, Musk had urged caution amidst expectations. Failures on maiden rocket launches are common.
"It's the first launch of a very complicated and gigantic rocket, so it might not launch. We're going to be very cautious and if we see something that concerns us, we'll delay the launch," he said during an event on Twitter Spaces.
"If we can launch, I would consider anything that doesn't result in the launch pad itself being destroyed as a win."
Musk hopes to completely transform the rocket business with Starship.
It was designed to be completely and quickly reusable. And the entrepreneur foresees transporting people and putting satellites into orbit several times a day, in the same way that a jet plane can cross the Atlantic.
In fact, Musk believes the rover could usher in an era of interplanetary travel for ordinary people.
The propeller was kept on the ground when its engines fired for a 'static ignition' test.
The Starship's upper segment has been tested previously in short launches, but this will be the first time it has launched with its lower stage.
This gigantic booster, called the Super Heavy, was fired while attached to its launch tower in February. However, the engines were slowed down to half capacity on that occasion.
If, as promised, SpaceX applies 90% of the thrust force this Monday, the segment should generate something close to 70 meganewtons – equivalent to the force needed to propel nearly 100 supersonic Concorde planes on takeoff.
The schedule called for Starship to lift off and head toward the Gulf of Mexico, with the 33 engines on the underside of the methane-powered propeller burning for two minutes and 49 seconds.
At that point, the two halves of the rocket were to separate, and the top segment, the spacecraft, to run on its own engines for another six minutes and 23 seconds.
By this time, it should be passing through the Caribbean and cruising through space more than 100 km above the planet's surface.
SpaceX wants the Super Heavy booster to try to return close to the Texas coast and land vertically, hovering just above the Gulf waters. It will then be allowed to topple over and sink.
The spacecraft is aiming to re-enter Earth's atmosphere after making almost a complete turn around the planet, landing in the Pacific north of the Hawaiian archipelago. It has been given a protective coating to withstand the immense heat it will face on the way back. An ocean belly descent is scheduled to occur 90 minutes after takeoff.
In the longer term, SpaceX hopes that both the booster and the spacecraft will make controlled landings so they can be refueled and relaunched.
The company has been testing different approaches to building steel space vehicles in Boca Chica.
There are several models waiting for their turn to take off.
One of the most interested spectators of the Starship launch is NASA. The American space agency is paying nearly $3 billion (R$15 billion) to SpaceX to develop a version of the Starship to land on the Moon with astronauts on board.
Garrett Reisman, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Southern California (USA), says that Musk has the ambition to go even deeper into the Solar System.
"He sees Starship potentially as another giant paradigm shift, an incredible increase in capability - the ability to really get people on a massive scale to Mars," the SpaceX consultant and former astronaut tells BBC News.
"There are a lot of potential benefits, but there are also a lot of potential risks because this is so difficult. No one anywhere has built a rocket that comes close to this size — twice as big as the nearest thing."
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