Starship Flight 13 Now Targeting July 23 After Aborted Launch Attempt

SpaceX is targeting Thursday, July 23, for the thirteenth flight test of its massive Starship rocket. The 90-minute launch window opens at 5:45 p.m. CT (2:45 p.m. PT) from the company’s Starbase facility, with a live webcast beginning roughly 30 minutes before liftoff.

The upcoming launch comes after SpaceX stood down from an earlier attempt on July 16. During that countdown, several engines failed to ignite, triggering an automatic abort before propellant was offloaded. Elon Musk later confirmed that technicians needed to remove and replace two Raptor engines to ensure vehicle reliability, pushing the target window into next week.

Flight 13 will build on objectives from the previous test, which introduced the upgraded Starship and Super Heavy V3 vehicle architecture. Engineering teams have spent the interim making hardware and software adjustments to address several anomalies from Flight 12.

During the last test, slight timing differences during stage separation caused the Super Heavy booster to flip roughly 90 degrees off target, after which five of its 33 engines failed to relight during the boostback burn. SpaceX updated the startup sequence and engine abort logic for this flight to improve re-light reliability and ensure a clean directional flip. The booster will target an offshore landing burn in the Gulf of America.

The Starship upper stage will aim to complete a suborbital trajectory, deploy next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, perform an in-space Raptor engine relight, and execute a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. While Flight 12 achieved its planned trajectory despite losing one of three vacuum-optimized Raptors shortly after staging, SpaceX implemented propulsion fixes to prevent similar engine outages.

This mission marks the first time Starship will carry payload to space. The vehicle will deploy 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites designed to boost capacity across the satellite network. The test batch will travel on the same suborbital path as Starship and burn up upon atmospheric reentry about 20 minutes after deployment.

Six of those Starlink satellites feature specialized camera suites pointing back at Starship to photograph its thermal protection system during flight. SpaceX painted select heat shield tiles white to serve as high-contrast visual targets, helping engineers evaluate heat shield performance and test automated inspection methods ahead of future land-recovery attempts.