
A general view of a SpaceX building and Starship rocket ahead of the SpaceX initial public offering (IPO), in Starbase, Texas, U.S., June 11, 2026.
SpaceX scrubbed the launch of its Starship mega rocket on Thursday, with CEO Elon Musk pledging to make another attempt "hopefully in a few days."
A 90-minute launch window opened at 6:45 p.m. ET, and within minutes, the reusable rocket maker announced on a livestream that it was standing down for the day.
"Some of the engines didn't start, triggering an automatic launch abort," Musk wrote in a post on X. He added later in another X post: "To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed & replaced. Most probable launch timing is early next week."
Shares of SpaceX fell more than 3% in extended trading, sinking further beneath its IPO price of $135. The stock is on a five-day losing streak.
The rocket was poised for takeoff from SpaceX's Starbase complex in South Texas when a hold was triggered on the booster, which "shut down the engines right as they were starting to ignite," a SpaceX employee said on the livestream.
It would've been the first test flight of Starship V3, an upgraded version of its roughly 400-foot-tall rocket, since SpaceX's blockbuster initial public offering last month.
An earlier V3 test launch in May did not go perfectly.
After a successful liftoff, several engines in the bottom stage of the rocket failed to reignite to help guide it to a soft landing, causing it to plummet into the Gulf of Mexico.