SpaceX abruptly aborted the second launch attempt of its upgraded Starship rocket system Thursday, just moments after the booster ignited at the company’s South Texas complex.
CEO Elon Musk he said on social networking platform X that “[s]some of the engines failed to start, causing an automatic launch abort,” and that the company would replace two of them. SpaceX won’t try to launch Starship again until next week, he wrote.
SpaceX had hoped to launch the first third-generation Starlink satellites into space — though they are supposed to burn up about 20 minutes after deployment, as the Starship has yet to demonstrate the ability to reach Earth orbit.
This is also SpaceX’s first Starship test launch since it launched on June 12 in the largest IPO in history. The company raised more than $85 billion in the deal and briefly touched the valuations of Amazon and Microsoft, though its stock has fallen steadily in the intervening month.
On Thursday, SpaceX’s stock price closed below its IPO price of $135. Its stock sank more than 4% in after-hours trading after the aborted launch.
SpaceX was trying to return to flight just weeks after the Starship V3 first launched in May. This shipment was a mixed bag.
Taking off from the launch site with the first version of a newly upgraded rocket was a big step forward, and the company was able to deploy a number of Starlink simulators in space. But the Super Heavy booster stage failed before it could attempt a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting an FAA-ordered review of what went wrong. (The FAA cleared the company to fly the Starship again earlier this week after identifying a series of causes and fixes for the booster failure.)
The Starship’s upper stage also lost an engine on its way to deploy the Starlink simulators during the May mission. The upper stage was able to perform its own simulated landing over water without issue.
SpaceX had hoped to take another step forward Thursday by launching its V3 Starlink satellites. The upgraded Starship and Starlink are key to SpaceX’s incredibly ambitious plans to prove that the concept of “orbital data centers” is both technologically and financially viable. Starlink is also the largest revenue driver and the only profitable part of SpaceX’s business.
Thursday’s launch attempt appeared to be progressing just fine, with only a brief wait on the countdown at T-minus one minute before the scheduled launch attempt. That wait was quickly over and the countdown continued.
As the countdown ended, the launcher’s water deluge system fired and the booster stage visibly began to fire its engines — only for everything to suddenly shut down. The graphics in SpaceX’s broadcast seemed to indicate this four of the company’s new Raptor engines it did not fire on ignition.
SpaceX must now get all the propellant out of both the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage before it can determine exactly what went wrong Thursday.
This story has been updated with new information from Elon Musk.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect our editorial independence.
