Sixth night: US widens strikes on southern Iran, Tehran shells Gulf statesTrump accuses China of election tampering and sows doubt about the US voting system ahead of the midtermsKyiv in turmoil: Zelensky dismisses Defense Minister Fedorov and sides with the generalsNicaragua severs ties with Italy: a dispute over a Moro attackerMerz and Macron invoke Europe's strategic awakeningUS shortens stays for foreign students and journalistsRacist monkey video by Chinese state media outrages ManilaKim Jong Un receives China's number four, Wang HuningChina condemns nationalization of British SteelNetflix grows but disappoints the marketOil prices rise, IEA warns of threat to global energy securityEU Commission reforms emissions trading and ignites a climate rowTrump Media sells fast access to Truth Social postsXi opens World AI Conference and founds a world organization for AI cooperationChina's Moonshot unveils largest open AI modelSpaceX aborts Starship test flight at the last secondSixth night: US widens strikes on southern Iran, Tehran shells Gulf statesTrump accuses China of election tampering and sows doubt about the US voting system ahead of the midtermsKyiv in turmoil: Zelensky dismisses Defense Minister Fedorov and sides with the generalsNicaragua severs ties with Italy: a dispute over a Moro attackerMerz and Macron invoke Europe's strategic awakeningUS shortens stays for foreign students and journalistsRacist monkey video by Chinese state media outrages ManilaKim Jong Un receives China's number four, Wang HuningChina condemns nationalization of British SteelNetflix grows but disappoints the marketOil prices rise, IEA warns of threat to global energy securityEU Commission reforms emissions trading and ignites a climate rowTrump Media sells fast access to Truth Social postsXi opens World AI Conference and founds a world organization for AI cooperationChina's Moonshot unveils largest open AI modelSpaceX aborts Starship test flight at the last second
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SpaceX Starship

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SpaceX's Starship, at around 124 meters tall, is the largest and most powerful rocket system ever built and flown, its first stage (Super Heavy) powered by 33 engines. The rocket is developed, built and tested at the company's own Starbase site in Boca Chica at the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The program has been marked by test flights with failures and partial successes: on the first test flight in April 2023 the launch pad exploded and the rocket broke apart in the air, while on a later flight the returning first stage was for the first time caught by the launch tower's grappling arms. With Starship, SpaceX aims to transport people and cargo to the Moon and Mars and to deliver satellites such as the Starlink units into space.

Space.comFAA: SpaceX Starship Super Heavy Project

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Friday, 17 July 2026Technology

SpaceX aborts Starship test flight at the last second

SpaceX automatically aborted the 13th test flight of its Starship rocket in Texas shortly before liftoff. According to Elon Musk, several engines failed to ignite. It would have been the first flight since the company's IPO, and the first meant to carry a payload into space.

According to reports by AP and Reuters, the system automatically halted the launch in the final seconds of the countdown. The FAZ and Die Zeit describe that it would have been the first Starship test flight since SpaceX's IPO, and that Elon Musk cited the failure of several engines to ignite as the cause. Die Welt describes the disappointment after a guaranteed spectacle had been announced, when the giant rocket simply stood still at the countdown's zero. The reports agree on the sequence of events; the details on payload and IPO rest on today's coverage. For SpaceX, an aborted launch is part of the iterative test program that has long been marked by failures and partial successes, though public pressure has risen since the IPO.

FAZDie ZeitAssociated PressReuters