Starship is about to take to the skies on a daring new take a look at flight of the world’s strongest rocket.
After a number of days of testing, SpaceX has stacked and readied its huge Starship rocket for its thirteenth take a look at flight. Liftoff is scheduled to happen as we speak (July 16) throughout a 90-minute launch window that opens at 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 GMT), from pad 2 at SpaceX’s facility in Starbase, Texas.
Each levels had been of their respective Starbase hangars for last checkouts following profitable engine checks. Booster 40, the Tremendous Heavy first stage launching on Starship Flight 13, was returned to the pad yesterday (July 15). Ship 40, the mission’s upper-stage spacecraft, was rolled from the hangar starting yesterday night. The rocket was stacked in a single day, in accordance with a SpaceX publish on X, and now awaits prelaunch procedures forward of the start of Flight 13’s launch countdown.
Flight 13 will launch the second “Model 3” (V3) Starship, a brand new iteration that includes intensive design upgrades to assist mature the rocket towards clearing the automobile for official operation. In comparison with its Model 2 predecessor, V3 is taller, carries extra propellant, and has misplaced vital mass round its engine part as a result of upgraded avionics methods. V3 can also be geared up with 33 of SpaceX’s upgraded Raptor 3 engines on Tremendous Heavy, and one other six (three sea-level, three vacuum-optimized) Raptor 3s on Ship.
Starship is designed for full reusability, with each Tremendous Heavy and Ship able to returning to their launch website for touchdown and refurbishment, which suggests ensuring there’s sufficient gas within the tank to make the journey again. One essential improve for Starship V3 includes the propellant switch docking ports which have been added to Ship’s dorsal facet (reverse the heat-shield tiles on its stomach, or ventral facet). Ship makes use of nearly all of its gas attending to area and can due to this fact require propellant transfers from numerous refueling flights so as to fly past low Earth orbit.
NASA is eyeing the event progress of Starship very intently, with a vested curiosity within the spacecraft’s yet-unproven skill to switch and keep the kinds of cryogenic fuels that energy its Raptor 3s. NASA has contracted SpaceX to design a lunar lander model of Starship to return astronauts to the moon as part of the company’s Artemis program, and successfully managing its onboard propellants is without doubt one of the necessities on NASA’s guidelines to certify the automobile to fly with crews.
SpaceX plans to finish such an indication later this yr in preparation for Artemis III, focused for mid-to-late 2027, which can fly a crew of 4 aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft to dock with Ship in Earth orbit forward of this system’s first moon touchdown mission on Artemis IV in 2028. NASA contracted Blue Origin‘s Blue Moon spacecraft as a further Artemis lander, which can even launch to Earth orbit for docking operations with Orion throughout Artemis III.
Starship’s readiness to fly these future missions will largely be decided by the rocket’s efficiency on Flight 13, and its subsequent take a look at launches within the coming months. Immediately’s launch goals to easy over a number of tough patches that the automobile bumped into throughout V3’s debut on the largely profitable Flight 12, which occurred on Could 22. These hiccups included Tremendous Heavy failing to steer itself again to Earth for a managed splashdown and Ship not relighting one in all its Raptor engines in area as deliberate.
Stacking Starship for Flight 13 pic.twitter.com/L4XN6gqgRtJuly 16, 2026
If all goes in accordance with plan on as we speak’s launch, Tremendous Heavy will carry out a boostback burn and smooth splashdown within the Gulf of Mexico. Ship will keep on with a suborbital trajectory, and is predicted to launch 20 Starlink V3 satellites — the primary of the upgraded Starlinks to fly to area. Six of these spacecraft are geared up with cameras to examine Ship’s heat-shield tiles throughout flight. The satellites, although, will likely be on the identical suborbital trajectory as Ship, and are anticipated to dissipate throughout reentry by way of Earth’s environment. Ship is scheduled to carry out a touchdown burn and smooth splashdown of its personal a bit of greater than an hour after liftoff, and can meet a watery demise within the Indian Ocean.
Reside protection of Starship Flight 13 will start about half-hour previous to liftoff, and will be streamed right here on Area.com or immediately on SpaceX’s web site and social media channels.
