One second before takeoff. Technical malfunctions halt the launch of the world's largest rocket

SpaceX halted the launch of its Starship rocket on its 13th test flight, on Thursday, July 16, just one second before the actual launch from Starbase in the US state of Texas.

Data presented during the live broadcast of the launch revealed that four of the 33 main engines of the Raptor included in the rocket booster of the world's largest and most powerful system malfunctioned, prompting the automated launch system to intervene immediately and shut down the remaining 29 engines to prevent a catastrophe on the platform.

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, confirmed in a post published on the "X" platform after the accident, that the technical crews will replace two of the damaged engines to ensure a safe and good flight path, noting that the unloading of fuel from the rocket's fuselage began immediately in preparation for determining the beginning of next week as a possible date for the new attempt.

An ambitious trip plan under the test microscope

Meteorology and technical reports indicated that all weather and logistical conditions were perfectly in favor of the launch, and that a sudden partial failure of the engines prevented the 124-meter-high rocket from leaving the launch pad, in an incident that is the first of its kind in which a full Starship prototype flight was canceled at the last minute.

SpaceX set ambitious targets for this flight, as the rocket was scheduled to fly in a suborbital path adjacent to outer space around the hemisphere, with a mission that would last about a full hour and end with a controlled landing and crash of both parts in sea water, with no plan to recover them in this experimental phase.

The company revealed that the flight was also intended to test the improved thermal protection systems of the Starship shield by deliberately painting some thermal tiles white to simulate and photograph the missing tiles, as well as testing the restart of one Raptor engine in outer space, which is a key requirement for future missions.

Starlink's next-generation payload and moon landing ambition

The rocket carried on board 20 of the latest and most advanced third-generation satellites (V3), which were planned to be launched into space to try to communicate with satellites already in orbit via high-capacity laser technologies, before the attempt failed and it was decided to liquidate the payload and rocket together into the atmosphere later as planned.

Space officials confirmed that the US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) is watching these experiments with great interest, as it is directly relying on SpaceX's Starship spacecraft to ensure that astronauts land on the moon in the next few years as part of the ambitious Artemis program.

NASA has signed contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, to develop lunar landers, with Starship and Blue Moon set up by next year, to enable the Artemis 3 mission crew to rehearse docking operations and prepare for the return of humans to the moon's south pole after an absence of more than half a century.