Starship Flight 13 Succeeds as SpaceX Deploys First Starlink V3 Satellites

SpaceX finally got Starship off the ground on its 13th test flight Friday, lifting off from Starbase, Texas at 5.51 pm Central Time after not one but two false starts, including a launch abort at T minus zero last Thursday when four Raptor engines refused to cooperate at the last second. Weather delays and jittery engines apparently make a great opening act.

This flight carried the first ever operational Starlink V3 satellites, twenty of them, marking a shift from mass simulators used in earlier tests to actual production hardware. The rocket deliberately flew a higher dynamic pressure ascent than any previous mission, setting a program record at Max Q, the point of peak aerodynamic stress, all in the name of saving fuel and eventually hauling more cargo to orbit. Because nothing says progress like intentionally stressing a rocket harder than before.

SpaceX engineer Kate Tice confirmed contact with all 20 satellites, adding that laser communication links were also established with every one of them. Since the trajectory was suborbital by design, the satellites were never meant to stay up, and all 20 obediently reentered and burned up about 20 minutes after release, their job already done.

The upper stage, Ship 40, relit one of its six Raptor engines mid flight and executed what SpaceX called its softest Indian Ocean splashdown yet, settling upright and intact while still spouting flames, a scene company commentator Dan Huot called a dream outcome for heat shield data collection.

The Super Heavy booster was less graceful. Only about eight of its engines reignited for the landing burn, sending it slamming into the Gulf harder than planned, continuing this rocket's tradition of nailing the ship landing while treating the booster landing as an afterthought.

The mission followed the Federal Aviation Administration closing its review of the previous flight's mishap on July 13, clearing SpaceX for this attempt. This was also the second flight of the upgraded Starship V3 configuration, with NASA continuing to monitor progress toward using Starship as a future lunar lander.