SpaceX Pushes Starship Flight 13 to Thursday After Aborted Countdown
SpaceX has moved the next launch attempt of its Starship rocket to Thursday, 23 July, the latest delay for a flight that has now been scrubbed once and rescheduled twice. The company had originally targeted Monday evening from its Starbase site at Boca Chica in Texas, but needed more time to finish work on the vehicle’s propulsion system following last week’s aborted countdown.
The company opened a 90-minute window at 6:45 pm Eastern on Monday before standing down and has not yet published a precise time for the Thursday attempt. Starbase, located on the Gulf coast near the Mexican border, is where SpaceX assembles and flies the vehicle from its own launch pad.
This is Flight 13, the second outing for the towering V3 version of Starship, following an inauspicious debut on Flight 12 on May 23rd. During that flight, the upper stage reached space and released 20 mock satellites before splashing down in the Indian Ocean, while the Super Heavy booster was destroyed shortly after stage separation.
The trouble this time began on the ground. During the first attempt on July 16th, several of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster failed to ignite at T-0, triggering an automatic abort in the final seconds before liftoff. Elon Musk stated that two of the engines would be removed and replaced prior to the rocket’s next flight.
SpaceX initially pushed the flight to Monday, then to Thursday, stating only that they had modified the propulsion system to address the ignition fault. A fuller account of why the work required extra days has not been provided, in line with a test campaign that often announces dates first and reasons afterwards.
The mission itself repeats the profile SpaceX flew in May. Starship is scheduled to deploy the first batch of upgraded Starlink V3 satellites on a suborbital arc, demonstrating the dispenser mechanism and laser links before splashing down in the Indian Ocean. The demonstration satellites are not designed for longevity and will burn up upon re-entry.
The payload serves as a stepping stone towards SpaceX’s broader plan. The V3 Starlink satellites are larger and heavier than those previously launched on Falcon 9 rockets, necessitating Starship’s capabilities to launch them at scale. Each dispenser test on these flights is more significant than a mere formality.
SpaceX also aims to attempt an in-space relight of a single Raptor engine—a crucial maneuver for orbital missions—and has equipped several satellites with external cameras to film the heat shield during descent. Unlike previous tests, there will be no attempt to catch the booster with the launch tower on this flight.