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Oops — Starship’s Engines Didn’t Start! SpaceX Will Try Again Soon
Quick Summary
SpaceX’s Starship rocket almost launched on July 16, but its engines failed to ignite at the very last moment. Engineers are replacing two engines and plan to try again early next week. Building the world’s biggest rocket is hard work — and every setback teaches the team something new!
What Happened?
Starship is the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket. It stands 124 metres tall — about as tall as a 40-story building — and it has 33 huge engines on its bottom stage, called the Super Heavy booster.
On Thursday evening, SpaceX got all the way to the final countdown at its Starbase site in Boca Chica, Texas. The rocket was fully loaded with more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen fuel. That’s heavier than 5,000 elephants!
Then, at the very last second, something went wrong. Four of the 33 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence. The rocket’s computer detected the problem and automatically stopped the launch. This is called an “abort” — and it is actually the safety system doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk quickly explained what happened. He said two of the Raptor engines would need to be replaced before the rocket could fly. His team plans to be ready to try again early next week.
This flight, called Flight 13, had a very special job to do. It was supposed to carry 20 brand-new Starlink V3 satellites into space. These are the newest and most powerful internet satellites SpaceX has ever built. Each one can deliver 10 times more internet data than older satellites. They would have been the first V3 satellites ever to reach space.
Why Does It Matter?
Starship is not just any rocket. NASA is counting on it to carry astronauts to the surface of the Moon in the next few years as part of the Artemis program. SpaceX also needs Starship to launch its next-generation Starlink satellites, which would give millions of people around the world much faster internet.
SpaceX has been testing Starship over many flights, and each one — even the ones that don’t go as planned — teaches engineers important lessons. The safety computers worked perfectly on Thursday, protecting the rocket so it can fly another day. The team will keep improving the rocket until it is ready for its big missions.
Big Words
- Abort — to stop a launch safely before liftoff when something isn’t quite right
- Raptor engine — the powerful rocket engine that burns liquid methane and liquid oxygen to push Starship into space
- Super Heavy booster — the giant bottom stage of the Starship rocket that holds all 33 engines
- Suborbital — a flight that goes very high into space but comes back down without going all the way around Earth
- Starlink V3 — SpaceX’s newest and fastest internet satellites, designed to be 10 times more powerful than older ones
Fun Fact
Starship’s 33 Raptor engines together produce more thrust than any rocket ever built — even more than the Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts to the Moon in 1969!
Think About It
If you were an engineer on the SpaceX team, what would you check first after an engine fails to start?
Sources
- CNN — SpaceX scrubs launch attempt for Starship Flight 13
- SpaceNews — SpaceX aborts Starship Flight 13 launch attempt
- Spaceflight Now — Post-ignition anomaly causes abort of Starship Flight 13
- Euronews — Four engine failures abort Starship’s 13th launch bid at the last second
- Teslarati — SpaceX Starship Flight 13 aborted at Zero