Four Raptor engines failed to ignite on SpaceX's Starship V3 Thursday, triggering an automatic abort at T-0 that grounded the rocket and sent the company's stock sliding below its IPO price. The July 16 launch attempt from Starbase, Texas was the 13th test flight for Starship and only the second for the upgraded V3 variant. The countdown hit zero, the water deluge system fired, and the Super Heavy booster's 33 engines began to light.
Then everything shut down. "We got all the way down to start-up, triggered a hold on the booster, and that shut down the engines right as they were starting to ignite," SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during the company's livestream. The engine display on SpaceX's broadcast showed four of the 33 Raptor engines never started. CEO Elon Musk wrote on X that the automatic abort was triggered by the ignition failure and that SpaceX would replace two of the engines.
The next attempt won't come until next week at the earliest. The abort was the second blemish on Starship V3's record. The first V3 launch in May was a mixed result: the rocket got off the pad and deployed Starlink simulators, but the Super Heavy booster failed during a simulated Gulf of Mexico landing, triggering an FAA review. The FAA cleared SpaceX for Flight 13 earlier this week.
Thursday's timing was especially painful for investors. SpaceX went public on June 12 in the largest IPO in history, raising more than $85 billion and briefly touching the valuations of Amazon and Microsoft. The stock closed below its $135 IPO price on Thursday, then fell another 4% in after-hours trading after the abort.
Musk later confirmed two Raptor engines would be removed and replaced "to be confident of a good flight."
Flight 13's mission profile includes deploying 20 Starlink V3 satellites that would burn up about 20 minutes after deployment, a relight of one of Starship's six Raptor engines, and a splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The Super Heavy booster will target a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico rather than a catch at the launch site.
Starship V3 is the vehicle NASA is counting on for its Artemis moon missions. A watchdog report published in March found SpaceX was lagging behind NASA's lunar timeline, and the agency is also funding a Blue Origin lander as a backup. The Artemis IV mission would require multiple Starship launches to transfer propellant in orbit before a lunar landing.
SpaceX plans to eventually launch Starship from NASA's Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station's Launch Complex 37, where two pads are under construction. The company claims a Florida debut could come later this year, contingent on successful test flights.
