SpaceX abruptly halted the 13th test flight of its colossal Starship rocket on Thursday evening after an automated system detected that several of its primary engines failed to ignite just seconds before liftoff.
The dramatic technical glitch at 5:45 p.m. Central Time at Starbase, the company’s private spaceport in south Texas.
Billowing clouds of smoke and vapor briefly enveloped the pad as the countdown neared zero, but the 407-foot-tall vehicle remained firmly anchored.
SpaceX’s launch webcast showed the engine ignition sequence starting three seconds before the planned liftoff.
While the company did not initially elaborate on the exact telemetry during the live broadcast, onscreen data indicated that four of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster failed to fire.
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The rocket’s automated flight computer instantly recognized the anomaly and triggered a hold, cutting power to the remaining 29 active engines to prevent a launch with insufficient thrust.
“Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk stated in a post on X, formerly Twitter, shortly after the incident.
Musk added that the technicians would remove and replace two Raptor engines “to be confident of a good flight.” He indicated that the next launch window would likely open early next week.
Ground crews immediately began draining the super-chilled liquid methane and liquid oxygen fuel from the rocket.
The last-second cancellation marked the first time a full-scale Starship vehicle experienced an automated abort during an active launch sequence on the pad.
The scrubbed mission carries significant financial and operational stakes for SpaceX, coming just one month after the company went public on Wall Street in June.
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Following the announcement of the scrub, shares of SpaceX fell roughly 3% in aftermarket trading, closing at $131.11 and dipping below the company’s initial public offering price of $135 for the first time since listing.
The flight represents the second test launch of Starship Version 3, an upgraded iteration designed to advance the vehicle toward official operational status.
The primary objective of the planned hourlong space-skimming journey is to deploy 20 of SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink V3 internet satellites, marking the first time these advanced payloads have been sent to space.
NASA is tracking the development program closely while the U.S. space agency has contracted with SpaceX to use a modified version of Starship as the human landing system for its Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface.