Babe! go back to sleep, nothing happened…

You know how Tesla investors have spent the last decade hearing, "it's coming next year?" Well, unfortunately for SpaceX shareholders, they just got their first complimentary lesson in the Elon Cinematic Universe.

Thursday night's highly anticipated Starship V3 test flight made it all the way to the launch pad, through the countdown, and right up to the moment everyone expected 33 Raptor engines to light the Texas sky on fire… before the rocket all but gave us the good ole Spongebob classic, "Aight Imma head out."

SpaceX shares slid another 3.5% in premarket Friday after an engine ignition failure forced the company to scrub the launch at the literal last possible second.

According to Elon Musk, "some of the engines didn't start," triggering an automatic launch abort before liftoff. The company immediately began draining propellant while engineers started figuring out which Raptors had chosen early retirement. 

Musk later confirmed two Raptor engines will be removed and replaced, with another launch attempt planned for early next week. (So, unlike the Tesla robotaxi, this might not be too long of a wait.)

Naturally, investors reacted with the calm, measured patience you'd expect from people who knowingly invested in an experimental rocket company...

Just kidding. If you’re keeping score, shares are now down 12% since Monday alone.

This wasn't just another ordinary test flight, either.

It would've been Starship Version 3's second mission and its first launch since SpaceX's blockbuster June IPO raised a record $85.7 billion at $135 per share.

I will say... the mission had a pretty ambitious to-do list.

Launch successfully. Separate stages. Land the Super Heavy booster offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Deploy 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites. Reenter Earth's atmosphere. Splash down in the Indian Ocean.

Instead, the rocket checked exactly zero items off the list before deciding the safest place to be was still bolted to the launch pad.

But hey, look on the bright side… that's still a better outcome than blowing up several minutes later. And SpaceX has never exactly built its reputation on flawless first attempts.

Back in May, the previous Starship test also ended with enough excitement to keep FAA paperwork manufacturers employed for another quarter. The upper stage wound up headed toward the Indian Ocean earlier than intended, while the Super Heavy booster failed its controlled landing after five of its 33 Raptor engines refused to reignite.

That mishap triggered an FAA investigation, though regulators cleared SpaceX earlier this week to resume testing.

In other words... Thursday's launch was supposed to be the comeback tour. Instead, investors got a rain check.

The suits, however, seem a little less dramatic than the SpaceX subreddit who likely thought their portfolios would be “to the moon” by now.

JPMorgan analyst Seth Seifman noted before the launch that Starship's path was always going to include plenty of successes and setbacks as the company works toward launching dozens of missions next year, hundreds in 2028, and eventually thousands beyond that.

More importantly, he argued the real investment story isn't whether one test succeeds or fails. It's whether SpaceX can refurbish and fly the same Starship quickly enough to make the economics actually work.

And Elon, if there's some chance you're reading this... might be a good day to let Grok manage your X account. Scam Altman's not gonna have to try very hard to farm engagement off this one.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Tesla as mentioned in the article.