SpaceX sent its Starship megarocket skyward for the 13th time on July 24, achieving several milestones that brought the company closer to operational use of the world’s most powerful launch vehicle.
Liftoff from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, came at 5:51 p.m. Central time after a previous attempt on July 16 was aborted by onboard computers when four of the 33 first-stage Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite properly. A second attempt on July 23 was postponed due to low clouds near the launch site.
The third-generation Super Heavy booster, carrying Ship 40, performed a clean ascent under the full thrust of all 33 methane-fueled engines, generating approximately 16 million pounds of force. After about two and a half minutes, the upper stage separated through a hot-staging maneuver in which Starship’s six Raptor engines ignited while still attached to the booster.
The booster attempted to flip around and return for a controlled descent into the Gulf of Mexico, but only 10 of the 13 engines designated for the landing burn restarted. By the time it hit the water, only five engines were running, producing what SpaceX described as a hard splashdown at higher velocity than intended. SpaceX had opted for Gulf landings on the first V3 flights as a safety measure rather than attempting to return the booster to the launch tower, where mechanical arms known as chopsticks would eventually catch it.
Starship, meanwhile, completed its climb to a sub-orbital trajectory with all six engines running smoothly. For the first time on a Starship flight, the vehicle opened its payload dispenser and released 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites one at a time. SpaceX confirmed that engineers communicated with every satellite using both radio frequency and laser links and downloaded key telemetry. The satellites were deployed on a trajectory that led to their reentry and destruction about 20 minutes after release, but the demonstration validated the Pez-style dispenser mechanism that will be critical for future orbital missions.
In another first for the vehicle, Starship reignited one of its Raptor engines while coasting in space. The ability to restart engines after a coast phase is essential for missions that require orbital maneuvers, including NASA’s planned Artemis lunar landings.
After a roughly one-hour flight, Starship reentered the atmosphere and gathered data on its heat shield performance. It executed a dynamic banking maneuver intended to simulate the trajectory it would fly on return to Starbase, then guided itself toward a targeted splashdown zone northwest of Australia using its four flaps. All three landing engines relit, the vehicle executed its signature landing flip, and it settled upright into the Indian Ocean. For the first time, the ship remained fully intact after splashdown, floating on the surface as residual propellant burned off.
The flight followed a mostly successful debut of the V3 Starship in May 2026, during which a Raptor engine shut down prematurely on the way to orbit and the booster missed its landing target. SpaceX said it had made several modifications to hardware and software to address those issues before Flight 13.
The test comes as SpaceX works toward a far more ambitious goal: landing astronauts on the Moon for NASA. The agency has contracted SpaceX to develop a modified Starship variant as the Human Landing System for the Artemis program, with a crewed lunar touchdown targeted for as early as 2028. The current architecture requires roughly 15 Super Heavy-Starship tanker flights to refuel the lander in orbit before it can depart for the Moon.
A July 24 Government Accountability Office report identified several risks to the timeline, including delays in cryogenic propellant management, unresolved issues with upgraded Raptor engines, and the fact that SpaceX is more than a year behind its original schedule for key milestones such as the critical design review and an uncrewed lunar landing demonstration. NASA is also funding a backup lander developed by Blue Origin, though that company suffered a setback when its third New Glenn rocket was destroyed in a pad explosion during preflight engine tests.
Despite the booster’s hard splashdown and the remaining technical hurdles, the mission marked a significant step forward. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman shared an image of the Starship rocket passing the Moon, commenting that the company knows where the program is heading.
Images:
- Starship lifting off from Starbase (SpaceX)
- Super Heavy booster hard splashdown as seen by onboard camera (SpaceX)
- Starship’s 13th flight test mission page (SpaceX)
- SpaceX launches Starship on successful test flight (Scientific American)
- Super Heavy-Starship rocket chalks up mostly successful test flight (Spaceflight Now)