Elon Musk’s SpaceX postpones first test flight of Starship rocket

Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has postponed the debut launch of the most powerful rocket ever built, Starship. The uncrewed flight was scheduled to lift off from Boca Chica in Texas at 08:20 local time (14:20 BST).

Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has postponed the debut launch of the most powerful rocket ever built, Starship. The uncrewed flight was scheduled to lift off from Boca Chica in Texas at 08:20 local time (14:20 BST).

The liftoff of the next-generation and the world’s biggest rocket, which was designed to send astronauts to Mars was called off just minutes before the scheduled launch time after a pressurant valve seemed to be frozen in the booster stage, Elon Musk said in a tweet.

While the launch will be delayed by at least 48 hours, SpaceX announced that the team is ‘working towards the next available opportunity’ to launch the rocket.

"It's a very risky flight," Mr. Musk said in a live event on Twitter Spaces on April 16. "It's the first launch of a very complicated, gigantic rocket.

"There's a million ways this rocket could fail," he added. "We're going to be very careful and if we see anything that gives us concern, we'll postpone."

Mr. Musk said he wanted to "set expectations low" because "probably tomorrow will not be successful -- if by successful one means reaching orbit."

The U.S. space agency NASA has picked the Starship spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the Moon in late 2025 -- a mission known as Artemis III -- for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972.