SpaceX Starship Flight 13: What Just Happened on July 24 — First Starlink V3 Satellites Deployed, Softest Splashdown Ever, and Flight 14 Will Try to Catch the Ship

Starship Flight 13 launched July 24, 2026 after two failed attempts. It deployed 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites for the first time in the programme's history, achieved the softest Ship splashdown ever recorded, and Elon Musk confirmed Flight 14 will attempt to catch the upper stage with the tower arms. Here is everything that happened — and what comes next.

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It Took Three Attempts. The Third One Changed History.

On July 24, 2026, at exactly 5:51 p.m. CDT, a 407-foot rocket lit 33 engines simultaneously, climbed out of South Texas into a clear summer sky, and did something no Starship had ever done before: it delivered real satellites into space that actually worked.

SpaceX Starship Flight 13 launched successfully on its third attempt and deployed the first operational Starlink V3 satellites in the programme's history. The suborbital mission concluded with the softest Starship splashdown yet in the Indian Ocean — a landmark achievement for the aerospace company. Elon Musk posted on X immediately after: "Starship is intact, floating in the ocean and transmitting telemetry!"

That sentence — a rocket upper stage floating in the Indian Ocean, sending data home hours after splashdown — is the sentence that separates Starship in July 2026 from every previous year. SpaceX has built a vehicle that survives its own landing well enough to keep talking afterward. And in a few weeks, if Flight 13's data clears review, they are going to try to catch one from the air with a tower-mounted mechanical arm.

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The Road to Launch: Two Scrubs, One Tropical Storm, and an Engine Swap

Flight 13's path to the launch pad was the programme's most dramatic in recent memory. Three separate attempts were required before the vehicle left the ground.

Attempt 1: July 16 — The T-0 Abort

During the initial launch attempt on July 16, 2026, the vehicle's flight software triggered an automatic abort at T-0 — just prior to liftoff — after four Raptor engines had problems with their oxidiser turbopumps and failed to meet the minimum speed required for safe flight. The abort system worked exactly as designed, protecting both the vehicle and the launch pad from damage.

Elon Musk was direct about the fix: two Raptor engines needed to be physically removed and replaced. The vehicle was detanked and destacked — a significant operation on a fully assembled 407-foot rocket — and the engine swap began immediately. SpaceX also modified the startup sequence to make it more robust to timing variability in engine ignition.

Attempt 2: July 23 — Tropical Storm Bertha

The second launch attempt, scheduled for July 23, was scrubbed approximately two hours and fifty minutes before liftoff due to Tropical Storm Bertha, which was expected to make landfall in Texas that evening. One of Flight 13's primary technical objectives was capturing clear ground-based imagery of Starship's heat shield during ascent — an objective that required visibility conditions the storm could not provide. SpaceX confirmed that visibility was forecast to be ideal for a Friday attempt and stood down for 24 hours.

Attempt 3: July 24 — The One That Counted

The FAA had officially closed the Flight 12 mishap investigation on July 13, 2026, clearing Flight 13 for launch. Following a successful full-duration 33-engine static fire on Booster 20 on July 10, and after completing the Raptor engine replacement and vehicle restacking on July 22, the stack was ready for its third attempt. The weather on Friday cooperated. At 5:51 p.m. CDT, Flight 13 left the ground.

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The Launch: All 33 Engines, Clean Separation, a Historic Deployment

Ascent

Super Heavy ignited all 33 Raptor 3 engines and ascended over the Gulf of America. The successful first-stage ascent was followed by a hot-staging manoeuvre in which Starship's upper stage ignited its six Raptor engines before physical stage separation — the technique that reduces velocity loss during the transition and places Ship on its planned trajectory more efficiently.

The modified startup sequence paid off immediately. All 33 engines lit. The booster climbed cleanly. Hot-stage separation was nominal.

The Headline Achievement: First Operational Starlink V3 Deployment

Every previous Starship flight that carried a payload deployed simulators — mass-equivalent dummy satellites designed to test deployment mechanisms without risking real hardware. Flight 13 ended that era.

For the first time in the programme's history, Starship carried 20 Starlink V3 satellites to space. Each satellite extended its solar arrays and antennas after deployment. All 20 attempted to connect with ground stations in South Africa and the larger Starlink constellation via high-capacity inter-satellite laser links. Every single one succeeded.

SpaceX engineer Michael Nicolls confirmed the result on X: "Excited for the first deployment of Starlink V3 sats — we've successfully communicated with all sats using RF and laser links and been able to download key telemetry."

All 20 satellites worked. Every solar array deployed. Every laser link connected. According to reporting from Spaceflight Now, all 20 satellites successfully linked to the existing Starlink constellation via inter-satellite laser terminals before reentry — a clean handoff that validates Starship as a viable operational launch vehicle for the first time.

Six of the 20 satellites had been fitted with cameras specifically to scan Starship's heat shield during ascent and transmit imagery to engineers on the ground. Several tiles on Starship were painted white to simulate missing tiles, serving as known imaging targets for the satellite camera array. This data feeds directly into the Flight 14 decision-making process.

In-Space Engine Relight

Ship successfully relighted one Raptor engine in space — an objective that had failed on Flight 12. The successful relight demonstrates in-space propulsion capability that is a prerequisite for orbital flight profiles on future missions, where precise velocity adjustments require engine operation after the initial ascent burn.

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The Booster: A Partial Success That Tells the Whole Story

The Boostback Burn Milestone

Booster 20 achieved something Booster 19 had not on Flight 12 — and something no V3 Super Heavy had previously done: it successfully completed the high-thrust portion of the boostback burn with all 33 engines firing. This was the first time a V3 Super Heavy achieved this. The booster did end the burn early, but the completion of the high-thrust phase is significant evidence that the engine redesign and startup sequence modifications addressed the core failure mode that lost Booster 19.

The Hard Landing

The booster landing was not clean. During the descent, only ten Raptor engines relit for the landing burn, and two of those shut off within seconds of ignition. Booster 20 hit the Gulf of Mexico harder than intended — what observers described as a hard splashdown rather than a controlled landing.

The hard landing matters — and simultaneously, it does not matter for Flight 13's mission success. The primary objectives — Starlink V3 deployment, Ship engine relight, heat shield data collection, and controlled Ship splashdown — all succeeded regardless of the booster's rough landing. The booster is more expensive to lose than to recover, but its loss did not compromise any mission objective.

The pattern across V3 flights is now clear: the Ship upper stage is working reliably; the Super Heavy booster's landing burn remains the consistency challenge. This is, in fact, the correct engineering priority order — Ship is the harder vehicle to perfect, and it is performing better than the booster. The booster's challenges are better understood and more tractable.

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The Ship: The Softest Splashdown in Programme History

Ship 40 achieved the programme's best-ever splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The vehicle gently descended, tipped over to float belly-up on the sea, and continued transmitting footage and telemetry well after splashdown — unlike previous vehicles, which had not survived ocean contact with their structure intact.

Elon Musk's post captured the moment: "Starship is intact, floating in the ocean and transmitting telemetry!" A rocket upper stage floating in the Indian Ocean, still sending data home — this is the signature achievement of Flight 13 and the data point that most directly informs the Flight 14 catch attempt decision.

What "Softest Splashdown" Means Technically

The Ship's reentry profile — the "belly flop" descent in which the vehicle uses its large body flap surfaces to create aerodynamic drag and control its descent attitude — requires precise control authority over orientation, velocity, and heading as it decelerates from near-orbital speeds through the atmosphere. Each successive improvement in this control sequence reduces the terminal velocity at water contact.

A softer splashdown means the vehicle arrives at the water with a more controlled trajectory, lower terminal velocity, and better aerodynamic management of the final descent. These are exactly the improvements required before a catch attempt — because catching Ship requires the same control precision applied not at an ocean surface, but at a 300-foot launch tower with mechanical arms that must engage a descending vehicle within a tolerance of metres, not tens of metres.

Flight 13 also fixed issues that had surfaced on Flight 12, including problems with stage separation dynamics and heat shield performance. The mission succeeded on every primary and secondary objective that was within its control.

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By the Numbers: Flight 13 at a Glance

• Launch date and time: July 24, 2026, 5:51 p.m. CDT (22:51 UTC)


• Launch site: Orbital Launch Pad 2, SpaceX Starbase, Brownsville, Texas


• Vehicle: Ship 40 and Booster 20 — Starship V3 configuration


• Vehicle height: 407 feet (124 metres) — tallest operational rocket ever flown


• Mission duration: Just over one hour


• Distance covered: More than 10,000 miles


• Launch attempts required: 3 (July 16 abort, July 23 weather scrub, July 24 success)


• Booster engines at ignition: 33 of 33 Raptor 3 engines — all successful


• Boostback burn: High-thrust phase completed with all 33 engines — first V3 booster to achieve this


• Booster landing burn: 10 engines relit, 2 shut down seconds after — hard splashdown in Gulf of Mexico


• Ship engines at separation: 6 of 6 Raptor engines — nominal


• Payload deployed: 20 Starlink V3 satellites — first operational payload in Starship programme history


• Satellite link success rate: 100% — all 20 connected via RF and laser links


• In-space engine relight: Successful — corrects Flight 12 failure


• Ship splashdown location: Indian Ocean — softest in programme history


• Post-splashdown status: Vehicle intact, floating, transmitting telemetry


• Starlink constellation total as of launch: 12,620 satellites launched, 10,881 in orbit, 10,865 working

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Why This Matters: The Three Stakes That Ride on Every Starship Flight

1. Starlink Next-Gen — SpaceX's Revenue Engine

Starlink is the only currently profitable SpaceX division. The next-generation V3 constellation — featuring larger satellites with inter-satellite laser links and significantly higher capacity — requires Starship to deploy them at a scale and cost that makes Falcon 9 unsuitable. A single Starship can deploy 20 or more V3 satellites per flight; reaching the density required for V3's performance advantages requires hundreds of launches.

Flight 13 validated the delivery mechanism entirely. The deployment worked. The satellites connected. The laser links established themselves within minutes of deployment. The revenue path for next-generation Starlink now has its first flight-proven data point — and for users in the Dominican Republic, the Caribbean, South Asia, and Africa, V3's expanded coverage directly improves internet service in regions where the existing constellation has gaps. The satellites on Flight 13 specifically attempted initial contact via ground stations in South Africa.

2. NASA Artemis IV — The Crewed Lunar Landing

NASA has invested over $4 billion in Starship as the Human Landing System for Artemis IV, currently targeting a crewed Moon landing in 2028. The prerequisite chain for that mission runs directly through Starship's capabilities:

• Reliable ascent and stage separation — demonstrated multiple times, including Flight 13


• In-space engine relight — demonstrated on Flight 13, correcting Flight 12


• Controlled reentry and splashdown — demonstrated and progressively improving, Flight 13 the best yet


• Orbital flight (full Earth orbit) — not yet demonstrated, targeted for Flight 14 or 15


• In-orbit propellant transfer — not yet demonstrated, required for lunar missions


• Full reusability via Ship catch — booster catch demonstrated; Ship catch targeted Flight 14

Flight 13 moved the programme past three prerequisites and set up the conditions for the next two. The Artemis timeline depends on every one of these milestones being achieved in sequence.

3. The Mars Mission — The Long Game

Elon Musk's stated ambition — humans on Mars within this decade — requires Starship to achieve full, rapid reusability with a turnaround of 24 hours or less between flights. Every iterative improvement in Ship's controlled splashdown quality is a step toward the catch capability that makes rapid reuse possible. Every operational Starlink V3 deployment generates the revenue that funds Mars programme development.

Flight 13 is not the Mars mission. It is the test that funds and enables the tests that eventually get there.

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Flight 14: The Ship Catch Attempt — What SpaceX Has Confirmed

Elon Musk has confirmed that SpaceX will attempt to catch the Starship upper stage with the launch tower's mechanical arms on Flight 14, contingent on a clean review of Flight 13's mission data. No date has been set.

SpaceX has caught the Super Heavy booster with Mechazilla's arms — the hydraulic tower-mounted chopstick system at Starbase — multiple times. Catching the Ship upper stage is a categorically harder engineering challenge for several specific reasons.

Reentry heat is the primary constraint. Ship enters from near-orbital or orbital velocities, experiencing thermal loads the booster never faces. The heat shield must be demonstrably reliable before a catch is attempted, because a catch requires Ship to follow a precise descent path that does not allow for last-second abort to a water landing if the vehicle is structurally compromised. Flight 13's satellite heat shield imagery campaign was designed precisely to generate that reliability data.

Ship also has no landing legs. The catch is the only planned recovery method — there is no mechanical backup if the approach is off-target. The vehicle either catches cleanly or splashes down in water.

The control precision required is measured in metres. The progressively improving splashdown control across recent flights — culminating in Flight 13's programme-best performance — is the evidence base SpaceX needs to justify attempting the catch. A vehicle that can consistently hit an ocean surface with low terminal velocity can, in principle, consistently hit a catch window of comparable or slightly wider tolerance.

Flight 14 may also target an orbital trajectory — completing a full Earth orbit before reentry — in addition to the Ship catch. An orbital Flight 14 that also attempts a Ship catch would be the most ambitious single Starship test in the programme's history. The Flight 13 data review will determine which combination is approved.

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SpaceX's Iterative Philosophy — The One Thing That Explains Everything

Observers who evaluate each Starship flight against a "did everything work perfectly?" standard consistently misread what SpaceX is doing. The Super Heavy booster's hard landing is real and worth noting. It is also, in the context of the programme's philosophy, data rather than failure.

The July 16 abort gave engineers the precise data needed to identify the turbopump failure mode, swap two Raptors, modify the startup sequence, and produce a clean all-33-engine ignition on July 24. The Flight 12 Ship engine relight failure gave engineers the specific information needed to successfully relight on Flight 13. The Flight 12 booster failure during boostback gave engineers the data that produced Flight 13's successful all-33-engine boostback burn completion.

Each anomaly is a calibrated experiment. The programme is not trying to succeed perfectly on every mission. It is trying to learn faster than any other programme in history. Flight 13 learned what it needed to learn. Flight 14 will be smarter for it.

"SpaceX is over the moon after Starship Flight 13 launch." — Space.com, July 24, 2026

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How to Follow Flight 14

No launch date has been confirmed for Flight 14. Based on the nine-week interval between Flights 12 and 13, and the complexity of the catch-attempt hardware review and approval process, the most realistic launch window is late September to November 2026.

To follow the programme: spacex.com/launches for official mission details; the SpaceX account on X for real-time updates; Space.com and Spaceflight Now for professional coverage; and NextSpaceflight.com for pre-launch vehicle tracking timelines.

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Sources: Starship SpaceX Wiki (Fandom) updated July 25, 2026; Space.com — Tariq Malik, July 24, 2026; Wikipedia — Starship flight test 13, updated July 25, 2026; Spaceflight Now — July 16 and July 23, 2026; HotAir — July 24, 2026; KeepTrack Space Brief — July 26, 2026; Zendar Universe — July 25, 2026; Basenor.com — July 24, 2026; Meteora Web Agency — July 24, 2026; Associated Press — Marcia Dunn, July 24, 2026

Keywords: Starship Flight 13 July 2026, SpaceX Starship launch results, Starlink V3 first deployment, Starship softest splashdown, Booster 20 hard landing, Ship 40 Indian Ocean, SpaceX Flight 13 success, Flight 14 Ship catch attempt, Raptor 3 engine startup abort, NASA Artemis Starship 2026