SpaceX abruptly halted the second launch attempt of its upgraded Starship rocket system Thursday, minutes after a booster ignited at the company’s South Texas facility.
CEO Elon Musk he said on social media platform X, “some of the engines did not start and auto-start stopped” and the company said it would replace two of them. SpaceX will not attempt to relaunch Starship until next week he wrote.
SpaceX hoped to launch the first third-generation Starlink satellites into space – although they would have to burn up about 20 minutes after launch, as Starship has yet to demonstrate its ability to reach Earth orbit.
This is also SpaceX’s first Starship test launch since its June 12 public launch the largest IPO ever in history. The company raised more than $85 billion in the deal and briefly touched the likes of Amazon and Microsoft, though its stock has fallen steadily over the past month.
On Thursday, SpaceX’s stock price closed below its IPO price of $135. Its shares fell more than 4% in after-hours trading after the suspended release.
SpaceX was trying to return to flight just weeks after the first launch of the Starship V3 in May. This mission was a mixed bag.
Getting off the launch pad with the first version of the newly improved rocket was a big step forward, and the company was able to put a number of Starlink simulators into space. But the Super Heavy’s booster stage failed before attempting a simulated landing in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting an FAA-ordered review of what went wrong. (The FAA cleared the company to fly Starship again earlier this week after determining a series of causes and fixes for the booster failure.)
The starship’s upper stage also lost an engine during the May mission en route to deploying the Starlink simulators. The upper stage was able to perform its simulated landing on the water without a hitch.
SpaceX hoped to take another step forward by launching its V3 Starlink satellites into orbit on Thursday. The improved Starship and Starlink are key to SpaceX’s incredibly ambitious plans to prove that the concept of “orbital data centers” is both technologically and economically viable. Starlink is also the largest source of revenue and the only profitable part of SpaceX’s business.
Thursday’s launch attempt went very well with only a brief hold on the countdown at T-minus one minute before the scheduled launch attempt. This hold was quickly cleared and the countdown resumed.
As the countdown ended, the launch platform’s water flood system activated and the booster stage visibly started firing its engines – only to have everything shut down suddenly. The graphics in SpaceX’s broadcast showed it the company’s four new Raptor engines it did not fire when ignited.
SpaceX must now remove all fuel from both the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage before Thursday can determine exactly what went wrong.
This story has been updated with new information from Elon Musk.
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