SpaceX to replace 2 Raptor engines on Starship after launch abort, next try 'early next week'

SpaceX is replacing two Raptor engines on its Starship rocket after multiple engines failed to ignite during the countdown, triggering an automatic abort that scrubbed the vehicle’s 13th flight test early Friday.

Elon Musk said on X that engineers will remove and replace two of the Raptor engines before the next attempt. He expects the launch window to open again early next week.

The abort came during the engine start sequence, when a bank of engines on the Super Heavy booster failed to fire. The automatic launch abort system detected insufficient thrust and halted the countdown — a safety mechanism that has triggered on past Starship attempts as well.

Musk did not specify which engines were at fault or whether the issue involved the upper stage or the booster alone. But the quick turnaround he outlined suggests the replacement work is straightforward and the vehicle otherwise passed its pre-launch checks.

The scrubbed mission was shaping up to be the most ambitious Starship flight yet. It would have marked the first time the upgraded Starship V3 and Super Heavy V3 stack carried payload — specifically, the next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, which SpaceX has been preparing for months. Flight 12, in late June, was the first time the V3 hardware flew at all. Flight 13 was supposed to prove it could do real work.

SpaceX has not set a formal launch date. If the engine swap proceeds as planned over the weekend, the company could be ready to try again by Monday or Tuesday.

The delay is a reminder that Starship’s development program still operates at the ragged edge of hardware reliability. Each flight test teaches SpaceX something — sometimes about performance, sometimes about what breaks. This week, the lesson was about engine ignition margins. Next week, the rocket gets another chance to fly.