SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at engine start

SpaceX's thirteenth test flight of its Starship megarocket was automatically aborted just as its engines began to ignite on Thursday evening, delaying a critical mission aimed at validating hardware upgrades and deploying new satellites. The launch was halted at T-minus zero, around 6:45 p.m. Eastern time, as the Super Heavy booster's engines were starting to fire at the company's Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The vehicle remained intact on the launch pad as teams began offloading propellant.

The flight, designated Flight 13, was intended to follow a similar suborbital profile to its predecessor in May, which debuted the third version of the Starship system. Objectives included a controlled splashdown of the Super Heavy booster in the Gulf of Mexico and a suborbital flight for the Starship upper stage, culminating in a splashdown in the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff. A key goal was to successfully reignite one of the ship's Raptor engines in space, a test that was called off during the previous flight due to an engine shutdown.

This mission also marked the first time a Starship would carry operational payloads: 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites. Six...