Why was the SpaceX Starship launch canceled? This is the new date and time for the 8th test flight

SpaceX was all set to go ahead with another trial of its Starship rocket, the biggest and most powerful ever built, on Monday. The top part of the rocket was stacked atop the heavy booster only within the past day, advancing the start-up space company’s ability to improve reusability of the various components of the rocket.

However, a last-minute issue arose which forced the mission crew to scrub the eighth test flight seconds before it was going to launch.

Why did SpaceX cancel test flight 8?

The mission crew was working on another issue as the clock counted down which had to do with the booster rocket, the first stage of the mammoth rocket. That forced an initial hold on the launch when the countdown reached T-minus forty seconds. Not long after it was announced that that had been fixed a new issue popped up however, the exact nature was not initially revealed.

The team said that during previous tests, similar issues that had arisen would have resulted in an immediate scrub. However, the technicians have gotten so good at fixing problems that they are now able to hold for several minutes at the T-minus forty seconds point.

Unfortunately for those who were looking forward to seeing the Starship take flight, they were left disappointed as the problem couldn’t be resolved with a simple fix and the mission had to be scrubbed for the day. The good news is that they won’t have to wait long for the next attempt.

When will SpaceX attempt another launch of Starship?

The Starship mission crew said that test flight 8 would try again within 24 hours. However, on Tuesday SpaceX updated the schedule saying that the next attempt will be on Wednesday, 5 March with the window will open at 5:30 p.m. CT/6:30 pm ET/3:30 om PT.

That will be when air and ocean-going traffic will be cleared from Starship’s suborbital flight path from Texas to Australia where it will splashdown in the Indian Ocean west of the island continent.

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