Musk "cools down" market expectations: SpaceX postpones 12th Starship test flight on the eve of a $1.75 trillion epic IPO.

SpaceX canceled its 12th Starship rocket launch in Texas on Thursday and said it will attempt the high-risk test flight again on Friday. The space company, owned by Musk, is nearing a record-breaking public listing. The unmanned Starship V3 rocket has undergone dozens of upgrades specifically designed for rapid Starlink satellite launches and NASA lunar missions. After months of testing delays, this flight is a key test for the spacecraft. This delay is also likely to affect investor confidence ahead of what could be the largest IPO in history, with SpaceX aiming for a valuation of $1.75 trillion. After a series of failures last year, SpaceX spent months redesigning the Starship and eventually launched the V3 design that was originally scheduled for Thursday. After several countdown pauses due to fuel temperature and pressure readings, SpaceX halted the launch on Thursday just seconds before planned liftoff. Musk said on Twitter that one of the hydraulic rams on a huge arm of the launch tower did not retract as designed. "If we can fix this tonight, a launch attempt will be made tomorrow," Musk said regarding the faulty arm. SpaceX is preparing to launch the Starship within a 90-minute window starting at 5:30 PM Central Time on Friday. SpaceX has spent over $15 billion developing the fully reusable Starship, which is key to Musk's goals of reducing launch costs, expanding the Starlink satellite business, and pursuing ambitions from deep space exploration to orbital data centersall factors included in its IPO valuation. Before the launch attempt on Thursday, Musk tried to lower expectations of failure, saying, "There are a lot of V3 spacecraft and boosters in the factory queue for production." He added that even in the event of failure, the impact on the future schedule of Starship test launches would not exceed about a month. SpaceX's engineering culture is considered more risk-tolerant than many of its more mature aerospace peers, built on a flight test strategy of pushing newly developed spacecraft to the edge of failure, then refining and improving through frequent repeat tests.