SpaceX scrubs launch of upgraded Starship from Texas, to retry Friday

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SpaceX on Thursday (May 21) scrubbed the launch of its 12th Starship rocket from Texas and said it will attempt the high-stakes test flight again on Friday, as Elon Musk's space company nears a record-breaking public listing.

Starship V3, uncrewed and featuring dozens of upgrades tailored for rapid Starlink satellite launches and NASA moon missions, was to be a key test for the vehicle following months of testing delays. 

It is also poised to affect investor confidence ahead of what might be the biggest initial public offering in history, where SpaceX is targeting a valuation of US$1.75 trillion.

SpaceX had spent months redesigning Starship after a streak of failures last year, culminating in the V3 design that was meant to launch on Thursday. 

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It called off Thursday's launch seconds before its planned liftoff, after multiple pauses to the countdown triggered by fuel temperature and pressure readings. 

Musk said on X that the hydraulic pin on one of the launch tower's giant mechanical arms did not retract as designed.

"If that can be fixed tonight, there will be another launch attempt tomorrow," Musk said of the faulty arm.

SpaceX said it is preparing to launch Starship during a 90-minute launch window which opens at 5.30pm Central Time on Friday (Saturday, 6.30am, Singapore time).

The fully reusable Starship, which SpaceX has spent more than US$15 billion developing, is key to Musk's goals of cutting launch costs, expanding his Starlink satellite business and pursuing ambitions ranging from deep-space exploration to orbital data centers - all factored into his IPO valuation.

Before the launch attempt on Thursday, Musk sought to temper expectations in case of failure, saying, "There is a large pipeline of V3 ships and boosters in the factory." 

He said a failure would not affect the cadence of future Starship test launches "by more than a month or so".

SpaceX's engineering culture, considered more risk-tolerant than many of the aerospace industry's more established players, is built on a flight-testing strategy that pushes newly developed spacecraft to the point of failure, then fine-tunes improvements through frequent repetition.

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