SpaceX scrubbed its Starship Flight 8 launch attempt on Monday afternoon. The cause for the scrub was not entirely shared, but it seemed to have shown up in the late stages of the count and involved the Super Heavy Booster. No specific reason for the scrub was given other than the holds came from the booster, not the ship.
The company then scrubbed the launch for the day. “Standing down from today’s flight test attempt. Starship team is determining the next best available opportunity to fly,” the company stated on social media. That could be as soon as March 4, SpaceX noted on its webcast.
“Too many question marks about this flight and then we were 20 bar low on ground spin start pressure,” SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk posted. “Best to destack, inspect both stages and try again in a day or two.”
SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said the company could try to launch again at the same time on Tuesday, depending on the issue.
At about the T-25 minute mark, an issue with Booster 15 showed up, causing a hold to take place. While the count didn’t stop, this eventually did lead to the hold triggering at the expected T-40 second mark.
Starship has a customized system that SpaceX is unable to utilize with its smaller Falcon rockets, holding for several minutes at T-40 seconds. For Falcon launches, if a hold is called after propellant loading begins, around T-20 minutes, a scrub has to take place. SpaceX’s Starship’s propellant tanks are so large that they enable a slower rate of cool down compared to Falcon, giving them at least some time to hold the count.
After a few minutes into the hold, the problem with the booster was solved; however, another issue with Ship 34 showed up that continued the hold. While SpaceX has the option to hold, it cannot hold at this point for the entire window, which had about 40 minutes left. .
SpaceX eventually cleared the hold and began counting down again until approximately 10 seconds later, when Booster 15 triggered “multiple holds,” which resulted in T-40 seconds and the scrub.