{"id":43124,"date":"2026-07-14T19:19:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/spacex-is-gearing-up-for-starships-13th-test-flight-later-this-week\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T19:19:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T11:19:45","slug":"spacex-is-gearing-up-for-starships-13th-test-flight-later-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/spacex-is-gearing-up-for-starships-13th-test-flight-later-this-week\/","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX is gearing up for Starship\u2019s 13th test flight later this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

The next test flight of SpaceX\u2019s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster could take off as soon as Thursday, and much of the hour-long mission will look a lot like the last Starship flight in May.<\/p>\n

But there are a few key differences for this launch, set to occur during a launch window that opens at 5:45 pm CDT (22:45 UTC) on Thursday. The most notable change is the inclusion of real, functioning Starlink satellites inside Starship\u2019s cargo bay. SpaceX previously tested the ship\u2019s payload deployment mechanism using simulators mimicking the mass and dimensions of the company\u2019s next-generation Starlink Version 3 broadband satellites.<\/p>\n

This time\u2014Starship\u2019s 13th full-scale test flight and the second to use SpaceX\u2019s newest version of Starship\u2014technicians have installed 20 Starlink V3 satellites into the ship\u2019s deployer, a system of pulleys and cables designed to eject a stack of satellites one at a time through an opening on the side of the spacecraft. The satellites will not be part of SpaceX\u2019s operational network, but engineers will attempt to briefly establish laser communication links between the Starlink V3s and other spacecraft flying in low-Earth orbit. If successful, these links will validate Starlink V3\u2019s interoperability with SpaceX\u2019s previous generation of Starlink satellites.<\/p>\n

As with all of SpaceX\u2019s previous Starship test flights, the more than 400-foot-tall rocket will fly on a long suborbital trajectory arcing halfway around the world from the launch site at Starbase, Texas, to a predetermined location in the Indian Ocean. The flight of Starship and the 20 Starlink satellites will last a little more than an hour before they fall back into the atmosphere. The ship will target a controlled splashdown northwest of Australia, while the Starlink satellites will burn up during reentry.<\/p>\n

A new ingredient<\/h2>\n

The flight plan for this week\u2019s mission has just enough time in space for the Starlink satellites to extend their solar arrays and antennas. The satellites will also attempt to connect with ground stations in South Africa as they soar more than 100 miles overhead.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, some of the Starlink V3s will host cameras to scan Starship\u2019s heat shield and transmit the imagery down to engineers on the ground, according to SpaceX. The imagery will allow ground teams to \u201ccontinue testing methods of analyzing Starship\u2019s heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions,\u201d SpaceX said in a post on its website.<\/p>\n

Two of the Starlink mockups carried cameras for external imaging on the last Starship mission, returning views of the ship set against the ghostly darkness of space. This time, SpaceX has affixed cameras to six of the Starlink satellites. The imaging opportunity on this week\u2019s mission will occur during nighttime, just as it did on the last flight.<\/p>\n

The presence of Starlink V3s on the next Starship test flight is a harbinger for what\u2019s to come. Fully loaded Starships will be capable of launching up to 60 Starlink V3s on a single flight, unlocking a dramatic expansion of the network\u2019s capacity. Each Falcon 9 launch with V2 satellites adds about 2.6 Tbps to the constellation. Pairing Starship with a full stack of V3 satellites will add 60 Tbps to the network.<\/p>\n

Starship is designed to carry other kinds of satellites, too, including customer payloads and massive platforms for SpaceX\u2019s proposed orbital data center network. The rocket is also designed for flights to the Moon and Mars. Starship is a core part of NASA\u2019s Artemis program to land astronauts at the Moon\u2019s south pole. But the first real operational missions for Starship will begin fielding SpaceX\u2019s third-generation Starlink constellation, perhaps later this year if all goes according to plan.<\/p>\n

\n

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A Starlink satellite simulator is prepared for loading into SpaceX\u2019s Starship rocket before the 12th test flight in May. The next flight will include functioning Starlink V3 satellites.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n SpaceX<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Lessons learned<\/h2>\n

SpaceX must send Starship into low-Earth orbit before achieving any of these lofty objectives. A near-perfect test flight Thursday would put the company on the cusp of an orbital launch. That, in turn, would allow Starship to move toward several important milestones, such as bona fide satellite launches, in-orbit refueling demos, and the first return of Starship to Starbase, Texas, for future reuse.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

One reason SpaceX isn\u2019t attempting an orbital flight this week is Starship\u2019s failure to complete one of its test objectives on the last launch, when the spacecraft was supposed to ignite one of its six Raptor engines for a brief burn in space. The spacecraft skipped the burn after a Raptor engine shut down prematurely during the launch sequence.<\/p>\n

The rest of the ship\u2019s flight went according to plan, culminating in a pinpoint splashdown in the Indian Ocean. It was the first flight of SpaceX\u2019s Starship V3 debuting new, more powerful Raptor engines. But officials need confidence in the Raptor engine\u2019s ability to reignite in the airless vacuum of space before proceeding to an orbital flight. In a worst-case scenario, a failed Raptor engine relight would strand Starship in orbit, leaving the enormous stainless steel vehicle to an unguided reentry that could become a risk to public safety.<\/p>\n

The flight plan for this week\u2019s mission includes the Raptor restart objective left unaccomplished in May. In an update posted to its website over the weekend, SpaceX did not address what caused the premature shutdown of the Raptor engine on Flight 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vehicle was able to demonstrate its engine out capability and reach its planned suborbital trajectory,\u201d the company wrote on its website. \u201cSeveral hardware and operational modifications have been made to address the interconnected causes with additional reliability improvements planned in upcoming versions of the Raptor engine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other goal left incomplete on Starship\u2019s last flight involved the splashdown of the rocket\u2019s Super Heavy booster, or first stage, which lost control moments after separating from the ship, or upper stage, a few minutes after liftoff. SpaceX intended for the booster to fly itself to a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico downrange from its launch base in South Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt stage separation on Flight 12, slight differences in engine startup on the ship caused the directional flip of the booster to be off by approximately 90 degrees,\u201d SpaceX wrote. \u201cThe startup sequence has been modified to be more robust to timing variability and more reliably flip in the desired direction, which is done to increase overall performance.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter stage separation and the flip, the Super Heavy booster attempted its boostback burn,\u201d SpaceX continued. \u201cFive of its 33 engines experienced issues when attempting to relight causing the boostback burn to end early. The Super Heavy on this upcoming flight has hardware modifications to improve relight reliability along with updates to engine alarms and aborts to match the conditions seen in the multi-engine flight environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

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Ship 40, the Starship vehicle slated to fly this week, undergoes testing at Starbase, Texas. Thousands of black ceramic heat shield tiles are visible in this image.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

SpaceX will also use Flight 13 to continue experimenting with Starship\u2019s heat shield, one of the most daunting technical challenges on the program. If the full rocket is to become rapidly reusable, as SpaceX intends, the heat shield\u2019s thousands of ceramic tiles must not only protect the ship once; they also must be robust enough to handle the extreme heating of reentry over and over again without refurbishment or replacement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s the single biggest remaining problem for Starship? It\u2019s having the heat shield be reusable,\u201d Musk said in February on the Dwarkesh Podcast<\/u>. \u201cNo one has ever made a reusable orbital heat shield. The heat shield\u2019s got to make it through the ascent phase without shucking a bunch of tiles, and then it\u2019s got to come back in and also not lose a bunch of tiles or overheat the main airframe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have brought the ship back and had it do a soft landing in the ocean. We\u2019ve done it a few times, but it lost a lot of tiles, and it \u2026 would not have been reusable without a lot of work,\u201d Musk said. \u201cIf you want to be able to land it, refill propellant, and fly again, you can\u2019t do this laborious inspection of 40,000 tiles type of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

On this flight, SpaceX will test out modified tiles and attachment mechanisms to gather flight data on different heat shield options. The shield will also have \u201cload sensing tiles\u201d to take measurements as the vehicle experiences higher dynamic pressure during ascent than on previous flights. This higher dynamic pressure will put \u201cadded stress on the tile attachments in exchange for increased payload to orbit capability,\u201d SpaceX said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The next test flight of SpaceX\u2019s Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy booster could take off as soon as Thursday, and much of the hour-long mission will look a lot like the last Starship flight in May. But there are a few key differences for this launch, set to occur during a launch window that opens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43124"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}