SpaceX scrubbed the Starship Flight 13 launch on July 16, 2026, at the last moment as some of the Super Heavy booster’s engines failed to ignite during the countdown at Starbase in Texas, the company announced.
The countdown had proceeded smoothly throughout the day, with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen loaded into the two-stage rocket. But as the Super Heavy booster’s engine startup sequence began, the launch computer called an automatic abort. SpaceX engineers began draining the propellant tanks and assessing the issue.
A graphic of engine status on SpaceX’s live video stream indicated that four of the 33 Raptor 3 engines on the booster never ignited, according to Ars Technica. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, posted on his social media platform X that the company would replace two of the Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster. “Most probable launch timing is early next week,” Musk wrote.
Flight 13 marks the second test of the upgraded Starship Version 3 and its new Raptor 3 engines. The first Version 3 flight, Flight 12 in May 2026, also encountered engine difficulties. During that mission, five of the booster’s 33 engines failed to reignite during the boostback burn, preventing a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The booster’s upper stage also lost one of its six Raptor engines prematurely.
SpaceX had specifically designed Flight 13 to address those previous failures. The company modified the engine startup sequence on the Super Heavy booster during its flip maneuver after stage separation to be more robust to timing variability. “The startup sequence has been modified to be more robust to timing variability and more reliably flip in the desired direction, which is done to increase overall performance,” SpaceX wrote in a recap of Flight 12. The company also hoped to achieve a controlled booster splashdown and demonstrate in-space engine reignition on the upper stage—two milestones it had not yet accomplished with the V3 design.
The scrub represents a setback for SpaceX’s cadence goals, as the company works to establish a rapid launch and reuse schedule for Starship. A successful Flight 13 would have been a critical step toward orbital missions and eventually using Starship to deploy Starlink satellites and support NASA’s Artemis lunar program. The next launch attempt will depend on how quickly engineers can complete the engine swap and resolve any underlying issues that prevented ignition.
Sources
- Ars Technica — Engine ignition failure at T-0, four engines failed to start, Raptor 3 engine details, engine swap announcement, and context on Flight 12 issues and startup sequence modifications
- Space.com — SpaceX’s goals for Flight 13 and what went wrong on Flight 12, including five engine failures during boostback burn and upper stage engine shutdown
- Spaceflight Now — Flight 12 mishap investigation and booster reignition failure during boostback burn
- TechCrunch — Flight 12 upper stage Raptor engine loss during flight
