SpaceX aborts Starship Flight 13 ignition at T-0 after booster engines fail to start

SpaceX scrubbed its Starship Flight 13 test at ignition late Wednesday, leaving the giant rocket on the launch pad in South Texas after some engines on its Super Heavy booster failed to start.

The abort came at T-0 on July 16 at the company’s Starbase launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. According to contemporaneous Associated Press reporting, the vehicle did not lift off. Instead, the onboard system automatically shut the launch down as engine ignition began.

AP reported that webcast telemetry showed ignition starting about three seconds before the planned liftoff. Four of the booster’s 33 Raptor engines did not fire, and the other 29 shut down almost immediately, keeping Starship on the pad. Afterward, SpaceX controllers began draining propellant from the vehicle. No injuries or public property damage were reported in early coverage.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said in a post on X, as reproduced by news outlets, that “Some of the engines didn’t start, triggering an automatic launch abort. Now offloading propellant. Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days.”

Dan Huot, a SpaceX communications manager, said after the abort: “We’ll dig in with the teams, figure out what happened, and figure out when our next attempt is going to be.”

Flight 13 was set to be the 13th integrated Starship test flight overall and the second using the program’s V3 configuration. The mission was meant to do more than simply repeat earlier test objectives. According to Space.com, SpaceX planned to carry 20 Starlink V3 satellites, described as the first functional Gen-3 Starlinks intended to fly on Starship, and to attempt an in-space relight of one Raptor engine.

That made the scrub notable both for what did not happen and for where the program stood. SpaceX had only recently been cleared to resume Starship flights. The Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. agency that licenses commercial rocket launches, said July 13 that it had accepted SpaceX’s mishap report and corrective actions tied to Flight 12, formally closing that investigation and allowing Flight 13 to proceed so long as licensing and safety requirements were met.

Flight 12, which launched May 22, 2026, reached space but ended with anomalies during the Super Heavy booster’s return-burn and reflight sequence, prompting the FAA-supervised investigation. Ahead of Flight 13, SpaceX had carried out major prelaunch testing, including a full 33-engine static fire of the booster that was reported July 10.

For now, the immediate issue is the ignition abort itself. The rocket and its payload remained at Starbase after the countdown stopped, and SpaceX moved into safing procedures by offloading propellant. Musk said the company hoped to try again “in a few days,” but initial public reports did not include an official new launch date.