Watch live: SpaceX is fueling its Starship for a a high-altitude flight – Ars Technica

Authentic story 12:45pm EST: SpaceX is readying its Starship prototype automobile for a second launch try on Wednesday afternoon from its South Texas Launch Web site. The launch window extends till 5pm native time (23:00 UTC), and sources instructed any liftoff would happen no sooner than 2pm native time.

The corporate obtained very near launching the “SN8” prototype on Tuesday night earlier than the try automatically aborted with simply 1.3 seconds left within the countdown. It’s not clear what brought on the last-second scrub—maybe a strain or temperature studying simply outdoors of acceptable ranges—however SpaceX engineers seem to have addressed the difficulty.

The climate on the coastal launch web site stays almost good on Wednesday, with mild winds and clear skies. Ought to a technical challenge come up once more, there are further alternatives on Thursday and Friday. Nonetheless, the South Texas climate will probably be far more windy on these days, maybe an excessive amount of for a flight.

This would be the first time SpaceX has tried to fly Starship to a excessive altitude—the automobile could fly as excessive as 12.5km. Earlier take a look at flights have solely gone as much as about 150 meters, and people automobiles haven’t included the flaps, nostril cone, and different options wanted to manage the automobile’s flight within the skinny higher ambiance. Managing that is no small feat, as the huge automobile stands greater than 50 meters tall and is slightly broad.

As a result of a lot of this take a look at will probably be new for the automobile and its engineers, it’s extra doubtless than not {that a} failure will happen. Maybe that is why a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals have been tuned in to SpaceX’s temporary webcast of Tuesday’s launch try—there stays a lot uncertainty about exactly what is going to happen.

As we await the second try right this moment, be happy to peruse the gallery of photos captured early Wednesday morning by Trevor Mahlmann, who visited the launch web site earlier than Boca Chica Boulevard was closed to by means of site visitors for the take a look at.

Replace 3:10pm EST: The webcast beneath is unlikely to start greater than 5 minutes earlier than the launch try, which is now more likely to happen no sooner than 3pm native time (21:00 UTC).

Itemizing picture by Trevor Mahlmann