SpaceX eyes tower catch for next Starship after auspicious end to 13th flight - Ars Technica

What the report says

Ars Technica reported that SpaceX is likely to try catching the Starship upper stage at its launch tower on the vehicle’s next test flight, following what the company viewed as a strong result on Starship’s 13th full-scale launch. The flight lifted off from Starbase in South Texas at 5:51 p.m. CDT on July 24, 2026, and sent Starship on an approximately hour-long suborbital trip that ended with an intact splashdown in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.

According to the report, the intact water landing gave SpaceX unusually valuable data on Starship’s heat shield, which includes more than 18,000 ceramic tiles protecting the stainless-steel vehicle during reentry. SpaceX used drones to inspect the floating spacecraft after splashdown, and company commentator Dan Huot said the outcome was especially important for engineers studying heat-shield performance. Elon Musk wrote on X that, unless post-flight reviews find issues, SpaceX will attempt a tower catch of the ship on the next flight.

The test was not flawless. Ars reported that the Super Heavy booster completed part of its return sequence but had trouble restarting enough Raptor engines for its landing burn and hit the Gulf of Mexico at high speed. SpaceX has caught and reflown earlier Super Heavy boosters, but the report notes it has not yet recovered the newer Version 3 booster.

The flight also included deployment of 20 upgraded Starlink V3 satellites on a suborbital path and a brief in-space restart of one Starship Raptor engine. Those demonstrations matter because SpaceX’s long-term Starship plans depend on reuse, orbital operations and launching larger Starlink satellites that cannot fly on Falcon 9.