SpaceX cancela lanzamiento de Starship V3 por problemas técnicos en víspera de OPI

SpaceX scrubbed its twelfth Starship test flight on Thursday morning, halting the countdown repeatedly as engineers worked through a pressure problem in one of the rocket's fuel lines. The mission was supposed to mark the debut of Starship V3, a substantially redesigned version of the company's megacohete, and the timing could hardly have been worse—SpaceX is racing toward a public offering, and the world was watching.

The trouble emerged during the final minutes of the countdown sequence. Flight director Dan Huot announced that technicians had identified a pressure anomaly in the rapid disconnect system, the mechanism that supplies liquid methane to Starship's engines and must separate cleanly at the moment of ignition. The countdown stopped. It restarted. It stopped again. At one point, the flight director gave the green light to proceed, only to halt the sequence once more. By mid-morning, SpaceX had abandoned the attempt.

The cancellation arrives at a peculiar moment for the company. Two investment experts consulted by CNN offered competing takes on what the delay might mean. Andrew Chanin, CEO of ProcureAM, noted that this test flight was drawing more scrutiny than any previous Starship attempt, and that scheduling it so close to the IPO was a calculated risk. Phil Scully, a partner at Balerion Space Ventures, countered that investors understand SpaceX's core strength: rapid iteration and learning through testing. The company has built its reputation on that willingness to fail publicly and move forward. Still, Scully acknowledged, image matters. A public company tends to be more volatile than a private one, both in triumph and in setback.

The stakes are real. Starship V3 represents a generational leap in rocket design. The new variant features Raptor 3 engines—sleeker, more efficient, and delivering roughly 50,000 pounds of additional thrust per engine at liftoff. The grid fins that guide the booster during descent have been redesigned: fewer in number but larger and stronger, positioned lower on the vehicle to reduce heat exposure during the critical moment when the upper stage ignites and separates. The fuel transfer system has been substantially reworked to allow all 33 Super Heavy engines to ignite simultaneously and faster. The upper stage Starship itself carries larger propellant tanks and a completely redesigned propulsion system. Even the satellite deployment mechanism has been upgraded.

Elon Musk has said that any new technology requires three major iterations to work properly. SpaceX is betting he is right. The company needs Starship operational to launch satellites, carry people to deep space, and fulfill NASA's requirement to land astronauts on the Moon as part of the broader competition with China. The clock is ticking.

But the path to this moment has been rough. In June 2025, a Starship exploded during a ground test in Brownsville, Texas, destroying not only the vehicle but much of the test site infrastructure. Jenna Lowe, SpaceX's senior manager of Starship operations, later called it a hard lesson. In November, another Starship V3 was destroyed during a fuel-loading test, though the damage to the facility was minimal and no one was hurt. The previous generation, Starship V2, flew five times beginning in January 2025. Two of those flights ended in explosions near populated areas—the vehicles broke apart over the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas, scattering debris across roads and coastlines. No one was injured, but residents were furious. The Federal Aviation Administration has since modified the flight path for today's attempt, routing Starship south of Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic rather than over the Caribbean territories that bore the brunt of earlier debris.

The human cost extends beyond the test site. On May 15, a SpaceX contractor fell 2.4 meters from scaffolding and died. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating. SpaceX declined to comment, and the company rarely engages with the press on such matters. OSHA has six months to complete its inquiry.

If and when SpaceX attempts the launch again, the flight plan calls for a series of carefully orchestrated milestones: a safe ascent, successful separation of the upper stage from the booster, a controlled ocean splashdown of the Super Heavy, deployment of 22 dummy satellites, a restart of one Raptor engine during coasting flight, and a series of aggressive maneuvers designed to stress-test the vehicle and gather data for future recovery attempts. The booster will not attempt to land in the launch tower's mechanical arms this time, but SpaceX will simulate the procedure as closely as possible to prepare for actual recovery in future flights. The company has made clear it does not expect perfection on the first V3 flight. But it does expect progress. And it needs it soon.