SpaceX will make another attempt to launch its Starship-Super Heavy rocket from southern Texas, but will face challenges during the passage of Tropical Storm Bertha.
Like the attempt a week earlier, the 90-minute launch window will open at 5:45 p.m. CDT (6:45 p.m. EDT/2245 UTC). The flight comes after several days of work replacing and testing multiple Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster.
Spaceflight Now’s live coverage will begin approximately two hours before liftoff.
Moments before the post-ignition failure on Thursday, July 16, on-screen telemetry data showed four engines that apparently had not ignited. During the early morning hours of Friday, July 17, Ship 40 (S40) was separated from Booster 20 (B20) and returned to the production site at the starbase.
Later that day, SpaceX also unloaded B20 and brought it back to the production site with about three treks. Founder Elon Musk said at least two Raptor engines needed to be removed after a hard engine stall during a launch attempt.
After a week of work, B20 returned to Pad 2 on Tuesday, 21 July. The next day, SpaceX loaded both liquid oxygen and liquid methane into the vehicle before emptying it again.
“Additional preflight testing on Super Heavy has been completed. Preparations are now underway to launch Starship as soon as tomorrow, Thursday, July 23,” SpaceX posted on social media after the conclusion of the test. “Weather is currently a key watch item for launch.”
Ship 40 returned to the pad on Wednesday, July 22, and was placed atop Booster 20 that evening.
One of the main objectives of this 13th test flight is to deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites from the S40. SpaceX has previously deployed Starlink simulators from previous Starships, but this will be the first deployment of production satellites.
“As part of this initial test, Starship plans to deploy 20 satellites that will extend the solar array and antennas and attempt to connect to the larger Starlink constellation via high-powered lasers,” SpaceX said on its website. “The Starlink satellites will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to disintegrate upon re-entry approximately 20 minutes after deployment.”
SpaceX also plans to perform a Raptor engine relight after the satellite deployment sequence of approximately 11 minutes. The teams also hope that the work done on the sea-level Raptor engine combined with a new startup sequence on the ship’s upper stage will allow for a successful boostback burn on Booster 20 and a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
During Starship Flight 12 in May, SpaceX said that the startup sequence of the engines on Ship 39 caused “the booster’s directional flip to be off by approximately 90 degrees.” Problems with five of the 33 sea-level engines on the booster prevented the nominal boostback burn and resulted in booster 19 premature destruction.
“This upcoming flight features hardware modifications to improve re-light reliability, along with updates to engine alarms and aborts to match conditions seen in a multi-engine flight environment in the Super Heavy,” the company said.
Other engine improvements are designed to prevent the early shutdown observed during Flight 12, preventing re-performance of the engine on that mission.
Work on the upper stage heat shield to help push it into the future will also demonstrate full reusability.
“The heat shield covering the aft skirt will have modified tiles and attachment mechanisms, as well as several tiles attached to the metal side of Starship’s rear flap to collect flight data on various attachment options,” SpaceX said. “Finally, Starship’s heat shield will have load sensing tiles to take measurements as the vehicle experiences higher dynamic pressure on ascent than in previous flights, placing additional stress on the tile attachments in exchange for increased payload in orbit capability.”
An almost identical version of the Starship Version 3 rocket that flies today will be used on the Artemis 3 mission, which will involve docking between Starship and NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
A new report published Thursday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) takes a look at a range of NASA’s long-term projects, including those associated with the Artemis program.
It points to “a series of testing challenges” faced by SpaceX when it comes to the human landing system version of Starship that will be used to return humans to the Moon. NASA wants to conduct a lunar landing with astronauts by 2028 with either Starship or Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 lander.
The GAO report said SpaceX not only is “more than a year behind its original schedule for critical events”, such as critical design reviews and an uncrewed landing demonstration, but also described the development of its Raptor engine as “top risk”.
“According to HLS officials, the latest version of the Raptor engine includes improvements such as welded fuel joints designed to prevent fuel leakage, which resulted in damage to the Starship vehicle during flight testing in March 2025,” the report said. “Flight Test 12, conducted in May 2026, was the first flight test of the new version of the engine.”
The GAO report said NASA officials pushed back some of the assessments and said the report’s assessments “do not reflect all ongoing programmatic changes resulting from adjustments made to the Artemis mission in February and March 2026.”
“Officials did not make any technical corrections to the assessment,” the report said.
