The Elon Musk-led company’s reusable rocket ship, Falcon 9, was set to blast off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, but suffered a setback at T-minus one minute and 24 seconds. The exact reason was not confirmed.
SpaceX said: “Auto-abort at T-1:24 ahead of tonight’s Falcon 9 launch of Starlink; next launch opportunity is tomorrow, March 1 at 8:15 p.m. EST.”
The Starlink mission is sending its satellites into Earth’s orbit, typically in batches of 60, designed to provide high-speed and low latency broadband internet to underserved areas around the world. More than 1,000 satellites have now been launched.
“Prior to the countdown everything was proceeding nominally,” SpaceX production supervisor Andy Tran said in a webcast streaming the launch.
“Keep in mind that the purpose of the countdown is to help us catch any potential issues prior to flight. There are a thousand ways launch can go wrong and only one way it can go right and given that we are overly cautious on the ground and if the team or vehicle sees anything that looks even slightly off they will stop the countdown.”
Tran assured viewers that the Falcon 9 rocket ship and its payload were “healthy” and remained in “good health.” The next launch can be watched via the SpaceX website and its official Twitter page. The window is at 8:15 p.m. EST (1:15 UTC on March 2).
SpaceX has been contacted for comment by Newsweek.
According to Space.com, the launch was previously scheduled for earlier last month but had to be delayed due to hardware issues and unfavorable weather conditions.
SpaceX said on its website the Falcon 9 first stage rocket booster that was supporting the aborted launch had previously flown on seven missions. These were the Iridium-8 mission, the Telstar 18 VANTAGE mission and five flights linked to Starlink.
It added: “One half of Falcon 9’s fairing previously flew on three Starlink missions, and the other half previously supported two Starlink missions.”
Describing the ambition of the Starlink mission, SpaceX’s website said: “Unbounded by traditional ground infrastructure, Starlink can deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable or completely unavailable.
It continued: “At a time when more people are working from home and more students are participating in virtual learning, internet connectivity is more important than ever. With Starlink, we are able to deploy quickly to areas that need it most.”
SpaceX expanded its ongoing beta test of the internet service last October, with service priced at $99 a month, costing $499 for the hardware kit.
On a dedicated Starlink website, SpaceX elaborated: “During beta, users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system.” It said there would also be “brief periods of no connectivity at all” during the test period.
Capabilities—including data speed, latency and uptime—will improve as more satellites are launched into orbit and more ground stations are installed, the company said.
