SpaceX shares dropped greater than 3% Friday, the day after it was compelled to wash a check flight of a brand new model of its Starship rocket that was set to hold and briefly deploy a batch of latest Starlink V3 satellites for a fast battery of in-flight checks.
Thursday’s launch was scrubbed simply on the startup stage when it was obvious that a number of of SpaceX’s new Raptor engines didn’t ignite.
“No Starship launch at present,” SpaceX communications exec Dan Huot stated on the livestream. At about T-minus 28 minutes, he famous there was a “90% change of chance for go.”
Starship on Pad 2 throughout Thursday evening’s countdown. (Supply: Screenshot from SpaceX’s livestream on July 16, 2026)
“A few of the engines did not begin, triggering an computerized launch abort,” SpaceX’s Elon Musk posted on X quickly after Thursday’s launch was scrubbed. He later added that two Raptor engines will have to be eliminated and changed “[t]o be assured of an excellent flight. Most likely launch timing is early subsequent week.”
The slated check launch of Starship V3 is supplied with new and extra highly effective Raptor engines on Pad 2 in Boca Chica, Texas, which was accomplished earlier this 12 months. Starship will probably be used to launch heavy payloads into orbit, together with Starlink satellites and the corporate’s new “Starmind” AI satellites, and in addition be used for future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Take a look at Flight 13 for Starship can be set to be the primary to deploy a batch of 20 extra highly effective and dense V3 Starlink satellites. Every Starlink V3 satellite tv for pc is full of about 1 Tbit/s of downlink capability and 160 Gbit/s of uplink capability, and a pair of,048 transmission and receiving beams. The capability within the V3 is a 10x enchancment on the downlink and a 22x enchancment on the uplink when in comparison with the Starlink V2.
Rendering of the Starlink V3 satellite tv for pc. (Supply: SpaceX)
The plan for Starship’s thirteenth flight check is to deploy the V3s to run a fast sequence of checks, together with the extension of their photo voltaic arrays and antennas, communications with floor stations and flipping on satellite tv for pc communications methods. These satellites will not look ahead to lengthy, as they’re set to “demise” (vaporize within the environment) after 20 minutes of flight.
SpaceX hopes these checks will present vital information for future V3 satellite tv for pc launches aboard Starship. “An important payload at present is knowledge,” Kate Tice, senior supervisor, high quality methods engineering for SpaceX, stated in the course of the livestream of Thursday’s countdown.
New Starlink equipment, AI replace
SpaceX used Thursday’s countdown to supply an replace on different merchandise and initiatives, together with the rollout of the Starlink V5, a smaller and lighter equipment that features a mini router.
SpaceX’s Huot additionally touched on the corporate’s plan to launch as much as 1 million orbital AI knowledge facilities, holding that SpaceX expects space-based compute to change into the lowest-cost choice inside two to a few years. To help that effort and the chips that will probably be required, SpaceX is exploring a manufacturing facility that may cowl about 100 million sq. toes – about ten occasions the scale of a Tesla Gigafactory.
