SpaceX Starship Launch Aborted on Thursday Over Engine Failure; Stock Falls 3.5% on Friday

According to CNBC, SpaceX's Starship rocket launch was aborted on Thursday (July 16) due to engine ignition failure during a planned test flight from Starbase, Texas. Some of the rocket's Raptor engines failed to start, triggering an automatic launch abort at the last second, billionaire founder Elon Musk said on X. SpaceX stock fell 3.5% in premarket trading on Friday and declined over 3% in after-hours trading Thursday.

Musk said the company will remove and replace two Raptors and plans the next launch attempt for early next week. This was SpaceX's first test flight of Starship V3 since its record $85.7 billion IPO in June, with shares originally priced at $135.