Pressure valve frozen! Countdown stuck at -40 seconds, SpaceX "Starship" launch plan delayed

At about 8:10 a.m. Central Time on April 17, SpaceX's Starship, known as the "most powerful rocket in history," was suspended in southern Texas due to a problem with the pressure valve. This was originally SpaceX's first attempt to send the Starship into orbit. It was also one of the most anticipated events in the commercial space field this year, and it was the first orbital flight of SpaceX's Starship. It aims to send humans to Mars in the future.

At 21:12 Beijing time, Musk posted on the social platform that a pressurization valve seemed to be frozen, so unless it started working soon, the starship could not be launched today. Later, Musk said, "The propellant is being unloaded and we will try to launch it again in a few days."

According to CCTV News, at 21:19 Eastern Time on the 17th, less than a minute before the launch of the first test flight of SpaceX's "Starship" heavy-lift rocket, SpaceX announced the postponement of the launch due to a problem with the super-heavy booster's pressurization system. SpaceX said it expected to take at least 48 hours, or at least until the 19th, to attempt another launch, but the exact time is still uncertain.

What is a starship like?

Musk's SpaceX Starship, also known as the Starship, is the next-generation launch vehicle launched by SpaceX. This concept was officially announced by Elon Musk in September 2017.

(Photo source: Beijing Science and Technology News, May 10, 2021)

According to reports, the total height of the "Starship" is about 120 meters. It consists of a "super-heavy thruster" 70 meters high at the bottom, equipped with 33 "Raptor" engines, and a 50-meter-high reusable spacecraft cabin at the top.

According to SpaceX's vision, "Starship" is a fully reusable transportation system that can carry astronauts and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and other places.

According to the US "Space" website, the previous holder of the title of "humankind's largest launch vehicle" was the US "Saturn V" rocket used for the "Apollo" moon landing program during the Cold War. It is about 111 meters tall and can launch about 130 tons of payload into Earth orbit and send about 50 tons of payload to the moon.

The Space Launch System, a new generation of heavy rocket currently carrying out the Artemis 2 manned lunar mission, can launch 95 tons of payload into low-Earth orbit. NASA said that the Space Launch System can send more than 27 tons of payload into lunar orbit.

In comparison, the fully reusable Starship has a low-Earth orbit carrying capacity of about 150 tons. Without considering recovery, the Starship's payload is as high as 250 tons to 300 tons. The booster for this test flight will be commanded to separate and fall into the Gulf of Mexico, and the spacecraft will continue to fly eastward, passing through the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and then fall into the sea near Hawaii.

Starship is designed to be fully reusable, but nothing will be retained for this test flight. The towering first-stage rocket booster, called Super Heavy, will soar for the first time on this test flight. Musk said the Starship spacecraft has about a 50% chance of reaching orbit.

Rocket booster lineup (Photo source: "Quantum Cognition" Baijiahao)

What has Starship experienced?

Over the past few years, SpaceX has tested several prototypes of the Starship upper stage structure at its Boca Chica facility in Texas, culminating in a successful vertical landing in 2021.

● May 29, 2020: After two more prototypes, SN1 and SN3, exploded during ground testing, SpaceX finally succeeded with SN4 and conducted five static fire tests with it until it exploded in the final test.

● August 5, 2020: Starship prototype SN5 successfully completed a flight at an altitude of 150 meters and landed on a nearby platform.

● December 9, 2020: SpaceX skipped SN7 and launched SN8, the first Starship prototype with fins and a nose cone, which was designed to reach a higher altitude, namely 10 kilometers. In a test flight, SN8 successfully flew to 12.5 kilometers, but descended too fast and exploded upon landing.

● February 2, 2021: In the second high-altitude attempt, SN9 flew to an altitude of 10 kilometers, but crashed during landing because one of its engines failed to ignite properly.

● March 3, 2021: SN10 completed a 10-kilometer flight almost perfectly during testing, but damaged its legs during landing, causing the rocket to tilt to one side and explode a few minutes after landing.

From left to right are the test flight postures and trajectories of SN8, SN9 and SN10 (Photo source: Tencent Space)

● March 30, 2021: SN11 successfully flew to 10 kilometers again, but exploded in the air during descent. (SpaceX skipped SN12, SN13, and SN14.)

● May 5, 2021: SN15 finally successfully completed a 10-kilometer high-altitude flight and landed successfully.

What are the missions of starships?

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk once said that unlike the Saturn V and Space Launch System, which are specifically used for manned lunar landing, Starship, with its powerful carrying capacity and multi-purpose design, can carry out Starlink satellite launches, transport astronauts and equipment to the moon and Mars, as well as more sci-fi alien colonization and space mining development.

Musk also claimed that the launch cost of "Starship" is quite low. Once the relevant tests are successful, large-scale production will be started to build a space fleet of 1,000 "Starships" at a rate of 100 ships per year to transport 100,000 people and related materials to Mars, realizing the dream of colonizing Mars from the late 2020s.

(Source: CCTV News, Beijing News, CCTV Phoenix Military Channel, some content comes from "Space Daily", "Quantum Cognition", Baijiahao, "Sina Finance", "NASA Space Enthusiasts")