SpaceX targeted Friday, July 24, for a second attempt to launch Starship Flight 13 after weather forced a waiver of the July 23 attempt. The company set a 90-minute launch window to open at 5:45 p.m. CDT, with the attempt dependent on conditions at liftoff.
Elon Musk said at least two Raptor engines needed to be removed after the hard engine stop during the launch attempt. That repair work followed a launch sequence that had already shown four engines that apparently did not ignite moments before the post-ignition abort on Thursday, July 16.
Booster 20 work at Starbase
SpaceX moved quickly after the abort. During the pre-dawn hours of Friday, July 17, Ship 40 was de-stacked from Booster 20 and returned to the production site at Starbase, and later that day SpaceX removed Booster 20 and rolled it back to the production site.
Booster 20 returned to Pad 2 on Tuesday, July 21 after a week of work. On Wednesday, July 22, SpaceX loaded the booster with liquid oxygen and liquid methane before draining the vehicle again, then stacked Ship 40 atop Booster 20 that evening. A company post said, “Additional preflight testing on Super Heavy complete. Now starting preparations to launch Starship as soon as tomorrow, Thursday, July 23” and added, “Weather is currently a significant watch item for launch.”
Starlink payload on Starship Flight 13
The flight plan included a new payload objective. SpaceX said, “As part of this initial test, Starship is planned to deploy 20 satellites which will extend solar arrays and antennas and will attempt to connect with the larger Starlink constellation via high-capacity lasers,” and added, “The Starlink satellites will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon reentry approximately 20 minutes after deployment.”
SpaceX also said it planned a Raptor engine relight after the roughly 11-minute satellite deploy sequence. The company said the Super Heavy on this upcoming flight had hardware modifications to improve re-light reliability along with updates to engine alarms and aborts to match the conditions seen in the multi-engine flight environment.
Flight 12 lessons
The work on Starship Flight 13 followed problems seen during Flight 12 in May. SpaceX said the startup sequence of the engines on Ship 39 caused the directional flip of the booster to be off by approximately 90 degrees, and issues with five out of 33 sea-level engines on the booster prevented a nominal boostback burn and lost Booster 19 prematurely.
That sequence leaves Friday’s window as the immediate test. SpaceX has already moved the hardware back into launch position, but the next attempt still turns on weather at the pad and whether the repaired booster can clear the second try.
