Elon Musk’s SpaceX wants to mine asteroids, generate energy on the moon and Mars, and “extend the light of consciousness to the stars,” the company told investors this week. Those interplanetary ambitions are all riding on its explosion-prone megarocket.
On Thursday, the company had to postpone its 12th test flight of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, blamed the delay on a hydraulic pin that failed to retract.
Last year, Starship experienced what SpaceX calls “rapid unscheduled disassembly” during three of its five flights. The rocket also burst into flames on its South Texas launchpad last June, sending shrapnel into Mexico. Musk has previously said those setbacks were valuable experiences for the company.
“Our ability to execute our growth strategy is highly dependent on the successful development and scaling of Starship and the ability to increase our launch cadence,” the company disclosed this week in a prospectus for investors ahead of the scrubbed launch. Its engineering and operational goals for Starship “are subject to challenges and uncertainties inherent in the development and deployment of new and complex technologies.”
