SpaceX Starship launch: World’s biggest rocket loses contact after reaching space

The live stream of today’s Starship launch attempt is here, you can watch it below.

... to The Independent’s live coverage of the (attempted) launch of Starship.

SpaceX has tweeted an image of Starship standing ready for its launch.

But the post isn’t only a set of nice images. It’s also a reminder of what SpaceX is hoping to happen: “the stress on the question of “how much we learn” and “rapid iterative development” is a hint that the spacecraft might not have a safe journey this time around, either, but that SpaceX hopes to gain useful information either way.

Those watching the latest at the launchpad are seeing developments that might suggest SpaceX has found an issue that could cause it to “destack” (that is, take apart) Starship.

SpaceX hasn’t yet said anything about a possible delay to the launch. But the company’s livestream did briefly switch from 17 November to 18 November, which might be an indication it is being delayed.

The only confirmation however will come from SpaceX, and there is no indication when that might be.

The first launch of Starship did not go ahead on its first day. That had been scheduled for 17 April but it was pulled with about eight minutes to go because of a frozen valve; SpaceX scrubbed that launch and held it on 20 April, when it did actually take off.

Starship is being destacked, which is to say taken back apart after it was put together, according to this image from Chris Bergin at Nasa Space Flight.

That doesn’t mean it won’t launch tomorrow, and SpaceX are yet to give any kind of update. But it almost certainly wasn’t part of the plan.

As the world awaits for news out of SpaceX (see below), Elon Musk has posted. But it’s not about Starship – rather it’s about free speech and X:

His previous post was a retweet of the SpaceX post below, about Starship being stacked, so he knows people are interested. And he is well known to keep a very close eye on Starship.

Elon Musk has announced that the launch is postponed until Saturday, as suspected.

No information yet about timings, though the SpaceX livestream is showing the same time: 7am local central time.

SpaceX says the launch window for the rearranged Starship launch will open at the same time it had planned for today: 7am local central time, which is 1pm UK time.

A live video will start about 35 minutes before, SpaceX says on its launch page.

After being taken apart to make the required fixes to launch tomorrow, Starship has once again been stacked, and is standing tall* on its launchpad.

*Taller than any other rocket, for that matter.

The 20 minute launch window for today’s attempt is set to open in less than three hours. We’ll have a live stream on this page in around two hours, as well as all the latest weather reports and updates concerning this historic effort.

Starship and its Super Heavy booster are already stacked and ready to go at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas, with the private space company sharing an image of the giant rocket system on X. It’s still the middle of the night at Starbase, but a giant spotlight is illuminating the scene as the final preparations get underway.