SpaceX aborted its SpaceX Starship launch on Thursday afternoon, July 16, stopping the 13th test flight just as the first-stage engines started firing up. The next Flight 13 launch attempt was scheduled for Thursday afternoon, July 23, after SpaceX swapped out two Raptors ahead of the try.
Michael Wall on Flight 13
Michael Wall, Spaceflight and Tech Editor for Space.com, has covered this program since he joined Space.com in 2010. Starship remains in the development-and-testing phase, and the July 16 abort left the vehicle on the pad instead of moving through the planned flight sequence.
Falcon 9 on July 20
SpaceX then faced a second last-second launch abort on July 20, when a Falcon 9 rocket tried to loft 24 Starlink internet satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. That attempt was stopped just as the first-stage engines started firing up, even though SpaceX said the Falcon 9 had launched 84 times this year with zero failures.
The Vandenberg Starlink launch was put back on the docket for Tuesday morning, July 21, during a nearly four-hour window that opens at 10 a.m. EDT, 1400 GMT, and 7 a.m. local California time. For readers tracking Flight 13, the immediate change is simple: the program moved from a last-second abort to a new Thursday afternoon, July 23 launch attempt, with two fresh Raptors already swapped in.
What caused the last-second abort of Starship's July 16 launch attempt still sits at the center of the story.
