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At Cape Canaveral, Florida, SpaceX’s latest and largest Starship nearly embarked on its test flight Thursday evening, but a series of issues stopped the countdown just seconds before launch.
The towering 407-foot (124-meter) rocket was ready to embark on a journey that would have it skim the edge of space, traveling halfway around the globe from Texas. However, complications arose with the newly constructed launch pad at Starbase near the Mexican border, leaving the company short on time.
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, later explained that a hydraulic pin, crucial for retracting the launch tower’s arm, failed to retract. Musk mentioned that if this issue could be swiftly resolved, they would attempt another launch on Friday.
The attempt on Thursday followed Musk’s recent announcement about taking his rocket company public.
This mission is set to carry 20 mock Starlink satellites, which will be deployed before Starship makes a controlled descent into the Indian Ocean. This marks the 12th test flight for Starship and the first one since the previous fall.
NASA is relying on this latest version of Starship to land astronauts on the moon in a few years.
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