SpaceX Starship test launch scrubbed at the last second in Texas

SpaceX scrubbed the 13th Starship test launch in Texas at the final stage of the countdown after some of the rocket’s 33 engines failed to start. The abort came just before liftoff from Starbase in Cameron County, where the launch window had opened at 5:45 p.m. CDT, 6:45 p.m. ET and 2245 UTC.

The rocket had been poised for the second flight of Starship Version 3 and the Super Heavy booster, a milestone in SpaceX’s push to move the vehicle from repeated test campaigns toward a fully reusable heavy-lift system. The launch was expected to keep advancing the design that SpaceX wants to use for Mars missions, large-scale satellite deployment and NASA’s lunar plans under Artemis. The vehicle came within roughly a second of flying before the ignition problem triggered the scrub.

The timing mattered because the Federal Aviation Administration had already closed its mishap review on July 13, clearing the way for the next test. That left SpaceX trying to preserve momentum in a program that has become one of the most closely watched in the U.S. space industry. Elon Musk said after the abort that another launch was probable next week, signaling that the delay was expected to be short rather than a reset of the campaign.

Starship’s test record has made each launch attempt a public measure of how fast SpaceX can solve the engineering problems that come with building the world’s largest and most powerful rocket. The vehicle’s size, engine count and rapid-iteration strategy have made progress visible, but also exposed how quickly a single malfunction can stop a launch at the pad. This attempt was no exception: the rocket reached the edge of liftoff, then stopped before takeoff.

The aborted launch also underscored how closely NASA is watching the program. A Starship variant is intended to support crewed lunar missions, while SpaceX’s own ambitions extend to Mars and a higher-cadence commercial launch system. With the countdown halted in Texas and another attempt now expected soon, Flight 13 became another test of whether SpaceX can turn repeated near-misses into a reliable operational rocket.