SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at ignition after engines failed to start

At 6:45 p.m. EDT on Thursday, July 16, 2026, SpaceX’s Starship megarocket aborted its 13th test flight just as the Super Heavy booster’s Raptor engines were igniting. Automated safety systems triggered a hold at T–0, leaving the vehicle upright and intact on Pad 2 at Starbase in Texas while propellant was offloaded. Elon Musk wrote on X that “some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort,” and SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during the livestream that a hold on the booster shut the engines down right as they began to ignite.

This was to be the second flight of the upgraded Version 3 Starship and Super Heavy booster, and SpaceX’s first Starship test attempt since the company went public in June 2026. ABC News reported that the company’s June IPO made it a newly public entity, so any problems could draw investor attention as well as engineering scrutiny. TechCrunch noted the IPO raised more than $85 billion and was the largest in history. The mission, known as Flight 13, was not aiming for orbit; it was planned as a suborbital arc from Texas over the Gulf and Atlantic to a splashdown in the Indian Ocean north of Australia, while the booster would land in the Gulf of Mexico.

A major new objective was the first deployment of real hardware: 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, according to Spaceflight Now. SpaceX said the satellites would extend solar arrays and antennas, attempt to connect with the broader Starlink network via laser links, and then reenter about 20 minutes after deployment along the same suborbital path. The flight also intended to retry an in-space Raptor relight, which Flight 12 had to cancel after one of the vehicle’s engines shut down prematurely. TechCrunch also noted that the upgraded Starship and Starlink are central to SpaceX’s ambition of proving orbital data centers viable.

Flight 12 in May 2026 had been the first V3 test. It reached its suborbital trajectory, but the Super Heavy booster lost control during its boostback burn and hit the water hard, prompting an FAA mishap investigation that closed only shortly before Flight 13’s attempt. SpaceX said it had implemented fixes for the booster problems, and the FAA accepted the findings of a SpaceX-led review.

The stakes extend beyond the test program. NASA plans to use a lunar-lander version of Starship for the Artemis III mission, targeted for late 2027, and a future Artemis landing would require multiple Starship launches to loft enough propellant for a round trip to the Moon. Scientific American pointed out that SpaceX still needs to demonstrate Starship can reach orbit, then do so repeatedly and reliably.

After the scrub, Musk said two Raptor engines would be removed and replaced “to be confident of a good flight,” and the next attempt would likely come early the following week. Spaceflight Now quoted him as saying “next launch attempt hopefully in a few days.” The abort itself caused no damage to the vehicle, but the delay carries extra scrutiny because of SpaceX’s new public status and the mission’s importance for Starlink, Artemis, and the company’s long-term plans for Mars.