Friday, May 22, 2026 at 11:13 am
Cape Canaveral, Florida – SpaceX was half a minute away from launching its latest and greatest spacecraft on a test flight on Thursday evening before a series of problems halted the countdown.
The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket was ready to begin a space journey from Texas extending halfway around the world. But problems arose with the brand-new platform at Starbase near the Mexican border, and the company ran out of time.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk later said that the hydraulic pin holding the launch tower arm in place had not retracted. He noted that if the problem can be resolved quickly, another launch attempt will be made on Friday.
SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket is prepared for a test flight, which was later postponed, at Starbase, Texas, Thursday, May 21, 2026.
AP Photo/Eric Jay
Thursday’s launch attempt came one day after Musk announced that his rocket company would go public.
The Starship carries 20 mock Starlink satellites to be launched before the spacecraft’s controlled entry into the Indian Ocean at the end of the hour-long flight. This will be the twelfth test flight of Starship and the first since last fall.
NASA is counting on this latest version of Starship to land astronauts on the moon within a few years.
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