Elon Musk’s SpaceX postponed the highly anticipated launch of its upgraded Starship megarocket, calling off Thursday’s test after multiple countdown stops and starts.
The company is now eyeing Friday for another take-off attempt of the third generation of its mammoth rocket, company spokesperson Dan Huot said on the launch livestream.
The trial mission comes amid high stakes for the space company eyeing a blockbuster initial public offering.
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After several rounds of stopping and starting the countdown clock, Huot said engineers would not be able to work through last-minute glitches in time to lift off Thursday.
Musk quickly posted on X that “the hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract.”
“If that can be fixed tonight,” the company will make another attempt at 5:30 p.m. local time (2230 GMT) on Friday, the tech titan added.
The thwarted attempt at the south Texas launchpad comes one day after SpaceX filed with US financial regulators to go public, likely in June, in what is expected to become a record initial public offering.
The IPO filing provides potential investors with detailed financial information, risk factors, and business strategy.
The launch will eventually offer a live-streamed look at SpaceX’s progress in developing its enormous Starship rocket, a key component of its own ambitious plans as well as the US space agency NASA’s program to return to the Moon.
It will be the 12th Starship flight, but the first in seven months.
The latest design is bigger than its predecessor, standing at just over 407 feet (124 meters) when fully stacked.
The company, which aims to make Starship a fully reusable system, says the mission’s primary goal is to demonstrate its redesigns in flight.
It’s planned that the so-called “Super Heavy” booster will splash into the water off the coast.
The upper stage is to deploy a payload of 20 mock satellites and two “specially modified Starlink satellites” outfitted with cameras, which will analyze the spacecraft’s heat shield.
The test mission is meant to last approximately 65 minutes after liftoff, as the upper stage cruises on a suborbital trajectory and eventually splashes down in the Indian Ocean, if all goes to plan.
The most recent Starship missions have gone down as successful.
But previous tests have ended in spectacular explosions, including twice over the Caribbean and once after reaching space. Last June, the upper stage blew up in a ground test.
