SpaceX scrubs Starship launch with seconds to go

Science

Not all bad news: Crypto billionaire signs up for a mission to Mars

SpaceX called off the launch of its huge Starship rocket seconds before liftoff due to a ground equipment problem.

The countdown clock reached a planned hold at T-40 seconds after a relatively trouble-free process. Some iffy weather had cleared, and everything looked good for the twelfth Starship test flight - the first try-out for the latest generation of the vehicle and launchpad.

Alas, it was not to be. After repeatedly resetting the countdown clock to the T-40 second mark due to problems, which included warnings from sensors on the quick-disconnect arm on the launch pad and issues with the pad's water diverter, SpaceX eventually threw in the towel and scrubbed the launch.

Boss man Elon Musk blamed the scrub on the ground equipment, and posted on X: "The hydraulic pin holding the tower arm in place did not retract." Musk wrote that if the issue could be fixed, SpaceX will try again later today. The next window opens at 5:30 pm CT, according to the billionaire.

Considering that this was the first launch attempt from a new pad and the first of this vehicle's iteration, the countdown problems are unsurprising. As such, getting to the T-40 second mark was an achievement in its own right. Sadly, the team had only a few minutes to deal with the problems, since the propellant loading was complete and the fuel temperature could not be maintained for long.

Expectations are high for this mission. Despite years of development and Musk's promises, Starship is still non-operational, and its launches remain on suborbital trajectories during its test phase. The vehicle has quite a way to go before it can play a part in NASA's goal of landing a crew on the Moon.

According to the company's recent IPO filing, "We expect Starship to commence payload delivery to orbit in the second half of 2026."

The second half of 2026 is only weeks away, so it'll be an interesting few months.

The IPO filing also states that Musk's performance-based restricted shares in SpaceX vest upon the establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars "with at least one million inhabitants."

First, however, the SpaceX needs to get to Mars. During the scrubbed launch attempt, it announced that crypto billionaire Chun Wang, who commanded the Fram2 private human spaceflight mission in 2025, would be on the crew for a future flyby of the red planet.

Hopefully, Wang's jaunt to Mars won't end up canceled like the dearMoon project, a mission to the Moon financed by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa. The project was unveiled in 2018, but was eventually canceled in 2024. Starship has yet to hit Earth orbit, let alone head to the Moon. ®