SpaceX Starship Flight 13 launch updates: It's launch day (again) for SpaceX's next Starship - Space

What the report says

Space.com reported that SpaceX launched its Starship Flight 13 test mission from Starbase, Texas, on Friday, July 24, with liftoff at 6:51 p.m. EDT. The launch followed a late countdown abort on July 16 and a weather-related delay from a planned July 23 attempt. The vehicle, made up of the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage, was flying a suborbital test profile expected to last a little more than an hour.

According to the outlet’s live updates, the flight achieved several major test objectives. The Super Heavy booster separated from the upper stage during hot staging and completed a return burn, though Space.com said the booster appeared to hit the Gulf of Mexico harder than intended after not all planned landing-burn engines seemed to ignite. The Starship upper stage continued to space, deployed 20 Starlink Version 3 satellites and later completed a single-Raptor engine relight, a maneuver SpaceX views as important for future orbital operations.

Space.com said the upper stage then reentered Earth’s atmosphere, passed through peak heating and maximum dynamic pressure, and made a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean west of Australia. SpaceX commentator Dan Huot, cited in the report, described the ocean landing as the company’s softest Starship splashdown and said it was valuable for collecting heat-shield data.

The test was the 13th Starship launch since 2023 and involved the Starship V3 configuration. The mission matters because SpaceX is using successive flights to validate reentry protection, engine relight, payload deployment and recovery-related procedures for the fully reusable launch system.