SpaceX abruptly halted the second launch attempt of its upgraded Starship rocket system on Thursday. This comes shortly after the booster ignited at the company’s complex in South Texas.
CEO Elon Musk said on his social media platform SpaceX won’t launch Starship again until next week, he wrote.
SpaceX had hoped to launch the first third-generation Starlink satellite into space. However, because Starship has not yet demonstrated the ability to reach Earth’s orbit, the satellite is expected to dissipate about 20 minutes after deployment.
This is also SpaceX’s first Starship test launch attempt since it went public on June 12 in the largest IPO in history. The company raised more than $85 billion in the deal, briefly impacting the valuations of Amazon and Microsoft, but its stock price has steadily declined in the meantime.
On Thursday, SpaceX’s stock closed below its IPO price of $135. Shares fell more than 4% in after-hours trading after the launch was halted.
SpaceX attempted to return to flight just weeks after its Starship V3 first launched last May. The mission was a mixed bag.
Getting the first version of the newly upgraded rocket off the launch pad was a huge step forward and allowed the company to deploy numerous Starlink simulators into space. But the Super Heavy booster stage failed before attempting a mock landing in the Gulf of Mexico, prompting an FAA review to determine what went wrong. (The FAA cleared the company to fly Starship again earlier this week after identifying multiple causes and fixes for the booster failure.)
Starship’s upper stage also lost an engine during deployment of the Starlink simulator during a mission in May. The upper stage was able to perform its own landing simulation on the water without any problems.
SpaceX hoped to take things a step further by launching its V3 Starlink satellite on Thursday. The upgraded Starship and Starlink are the centerpiece of SpaceX’s incredibly ambitious plan to prove that its “orbital data center” concept is technically and economically viable. Starlink is also its biggest revenue generator and the only profitable part of SpaceX’s business.
Thursday’s launch attempt appeared to go smoothly, with the countdown briefly halted at T-minus one minute before the scheduled launch attempt. The hold was quickly lifted and the countdown resumed.
As the countdown expired, the launch pad’s water deluge system activated and the booster stage began firing its engines noticeably, but then everything came to an abrupt halt. SpaceX’s broadcast graphics showed four of the company’s new Raptor engines failing to fire on ignition.
SpaceX now must remove all propellant from both the super heavy booster and upper stage before it can find out on Thursday exactly what went wrong.
This story has been updated with new information from Elon Musk.
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