SpaceX called off its 13th Starship test flight on Thursday after an automated system triggered a hold on the rocket in the final seconds of the countdown, halting the launch just as the vehicle's engines were beginning to ignite. The company said the flight, known as Flight 13, was scrubbed for the day and that teams would examine what caused the abort before setting a new date.
The stoppage came at the very end of the count, at the point where the Super Heavy booster was starting up. According to the launch commentary, a hold was triggered on the booster right at startup, shutting down the Raptor engines as they were beginning to light. The flame diverter on the pad had already activated, and once that happens a late hold results in a scrub, leaving the vehicle standing on the pad rather than lifting off.
The attempt was made from Pad 2 at Starbase, the company's launch site in South Texas, during a 90-minute window that opened at 5:45 p.m. Central Time. In the lead-up, teams had reported no issues with the vehicle or the pad, described the range as clear, and called the weather favorable, with blue skies and low winds. The countdown proceeded normally until the final moments.
Flight 13 had been laid out as another step in the program's testing. The plan called for the Super Heavy booster to lift off on its 33 Raptor engines, then perform a hot-stage separation, shutting down all but a handful of engines as the upper stage lit its own. The booster was then to flip, carry out a landing burn and splash down a few miles off the coast of Starbase in the Gulf.
The upper stage, known simply as Ship, was meant to press on with an ascent burn onto a suborbital trajectory. Once in space, it was set to deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites, which the company noted were real V3 spacecraft, before relighting a single Raptor engine. The profile then called for a fiery re-entry through the atmosphere and a final landing flip, landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
With the launch aborted, the company said its teams were moving straight into offloading propellant, draining the liquid methane and liquid oxygen from both Starship and the Super Heavy booster. Engineers planned to review flight data to determine what had triggered the last-second abort during the booster's ignition sequence, with updates to be shared on the company's account on X.
An explanation soon followed from the top. Chief executive Elon Musk said in a post on X that the abort had occurred because some of the engines did not start during the ignition sequence, the point at which the Super Heavy booster's Raptor engines were meant to roar to life. Musk added that the company expected to make another launch attempt in a few days, once teams had reviewed what happened and reset the vehicle for flight.
The scrubbed attempt came as the company continues to expand its Starship infrastructure beyond Texas. In Florida, teams have been activating a launch site at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, running tower and launch-mount tests, while a separate pad at Space Launch Complex 37 is taking shape and is targeted to be ready for flight operations early next year. The company has also been finishing a large facility, referred to as a gigabay, where Starship vehicles will be processed once they arrive on the Space Coast.