SpaceX aborts Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral at moment of ignition
A planned SpaceX rocket launch from Cape Canaveral was aborted at the moment of ignition Friday evening for unknown reasons.
The launch of the Falcon 9 rocket carrying 22 Starlink internet satellites to low-Earth orbit was abruptly canceled around 5:07 p.m. at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
A post from SpaceX on X, formerly known as Twitter, did not mention a reason for the cancellation and stated the launch would be rescheduled to an unspecified date.
The company had livestreamed the launch on its X account. A SpaceX commentator is heard saying “ignition” at the moment the on-screen timer reaches T-minus zero seconds. After three further seconds elapsed on the timer, the commentator says “abort, we have an abort.”
The abortion of a launch at such a late stage is considered rare.
“It’s been some time since we’ve had a mid-ignition abort of a Falcon 9 rocket,” said Will Robinson-Smith, a reporter for space news site Spaceflight Now as he live streamed coverage of the planned launch on YouTube.
According to Spaceflight Now, the last time a Falcon 9 launch was aborted this late was October 2020. The site also says this particular Falcon 9 booster rocket had flown 15 previous times and that it would have been SpaceX’s 61st Falcon 9 launch of 2024.
The launch had been postponed twice over the course of the previous two days.
The Starlink initiative is meant to create a network of satellites that can provide high-speed Internet access anywhere on Earth.