The rescheduled Starbase launch comes after four of 33 booster engines failed to ignite about a second before liftoff, as SpaceX shares trade below their $135 IPO price and NASA watches Starship’s lunar-lander progress.
SpaceX has set July 23 for Starship’s 13th test flight after an automatic abort halted a launch attempt roughly one second before liftoff at Starbase, Texas, when four of the booster’s 33 main engines failed to ignite. Musk said two engines will be replaced to be confident of a good flight. The mission profile is unchanged: a roughly one-hour suborbital journey carrying 20 of SpaceX’s newest Starlink satellites, which will try to communicate with spacecraft already in orbit while cameras document the heat shield. Neither the booster nor the ship is meant to be recovered. The delay has also added to pressure on SpaceX shares. SPCX closed at $123.1 on July 16, its first finish below the $135 IPO price since the company’s June 12 debut, which raised about $75 billion at a valuation above $1.75 trillion, and the stock has been trading around $123. Bitcoin.com News said the drop followed a broader pullback from levels above $160 as investors weighed dilution concerns tied to a $60 billion all-stock acquisition of AI coding startup Cursor. The stock’s swings have drawn added attention because SpaceX holds 18,712 bitcoin on its balance sheet and joined the Nasdaq-100 weeks after listing. Beyond the market reaction, the launch matters to NASA, which is relying on Starship as a lunar lander for Artemis missions. Artemis IV is scheduled for no earlier than 2028, and Starship still needs to demonstrate orbital refueling and an uncrewed lunar landing before astronauts fly aboard.