After the successful completion of the 13th flight, SpaceX occupied the tower for the next Starship

SpaceX had better luck on Friday, sending its 13th full-scale Starship test flight halfway around the world from South Texas to a target in a remote part of the Indian Ocean.

Starship had made precision jumps before. But this time the ship turned gently and came to rest floating in a remote part of the ocean west of Australia. Previous jumps have ended in flames, an outcome SpaceX officials expect with every water landing of the Starship.

After reaching the Indian Ocean, the Floating Star looked in fine shape. SpaceX engineers flew drones over the vehicle to test its thermal insulation, getting the best look at how the more than 18,000 ceramic tiles that insulate the craft’s stainless steel hull survived the trip to space and back. As the starship re-entered the atmosphere at the end of its hour-long flight from Starbase, Texas, the plates endured temperatures of 2,600° Fahrenheit (1,430° Celsius).

Encouraged by Friday’s successful flight, SpaceX will likely take the next leap with Starship on its next launch, according to company founder and CEO Elon Musk. This would launch the Starship into a longer range trajectory, possibly into low Earth orbit, returning the vehicle to the launch site. Mechanical arms on the launch tower will try to catch the craft as it slows down. SpaceX has already done this with the rocket’s massive Super Heavy booster, which is bigger and heavier than the Starship itself, but returns at a fraction of the speed.

“If we don’t find a problem after reviewing the mission data, SpaceX will try to catch the spacecraft with the tower on the next flight,” Musk X wrote on Thursday.

Starship’s six Raptor engines are afloat in the Indian Ocean.

Credit: SpaceX

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Engineers have long identified heat shield performance and durability as one of the most challenging challenges for the Starship program. SpaceX’s ambition for Starship includes fast turnarounds and eventually multiple flights per day. If this can be achieved, the heat shield must be robust against the vibrations and extreme temperatures it experiences during launch and re-entry. It cannot be repaired or replaced after each flight.

“This is the first time we’ve put an entire Starship in the water,” SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said during the company’s live webcast. “This is a dream scenario for a team trying to get heat shield data.”

Friday’s intact jump also opens the door for SpaceX to beach the rocket for more detailed inspections, possibly somewhere in Australia. Starship is designed for reuse, but not after exposure to salt water.

“It’s very important to clean the heatsink and everything else. The really good news is … you’re looking at a heatsink that looks pretty intact,” Huot said. “We were flying with significantly higher dynamic pressure, so we were putting more stress on this car on the uphill and it was sitting in the water.”

SpaceX continued to receive signals from the Starship after it bounced through the company’s Starlink satellite broadband network. A camera on board the Starship showed no signs of external damage to the vehicle’s six Raptor engines as it hit the water lens.

Friday’s test flight was the 13th launch of Starship aboard SpaceX’s massive Super Heavy booster and the second flight of the latest iteration of the world’s most powerful rocket — Starship Version 3.

The starship and its Super Heavy booster lift off from SpaceX’s launch site in South Texas on July 24, 2026 at 5:51 PM CDT.

Credit: Reginald Mathalone/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The 408-foot-tall (124-meter) rocket lifted off from Starbase, Texas, a few miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, at 5:51 p.m. CDT (6:51 p.m. EDT; 10:51 p.m. UTC). Thirty-three methane-fueled Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster guided the rocket eastward over the Gulf of Mexico and into the upper atmosphere, where the booster separated from the Starship’s upper stage after burning most of its cryogenic propellant.

The only thing left incomplete on SpaceX’s checklist for Flight 13 was the controlled jump of the Super Heavy booster. Simulating the maneuvers required to bring the booster back to the launch pad for recovery and reuse, it was supposed to re-ignite its engines to burn during a landing off the coast of Texas.

But some of the Raptor’s engines failed to restart because they burned out on landing, and the booster plunged into the ocean at high speed. SpaceX also had trouble with a booster splash on its last flight in May. Friday’s flight showed some progress, but engineers have more work to do to restore this version of the Super Heavy booster. SpaceX has previously recovered and flown its Super Heavy boosters twice with the Starship Version 2 design, but not with Version 3.

“The booster successfully completed the high-thrust portion of the booster burn with all 33 engines with the Super Heavy V3 for the first time before ending the burn early,” SpaceX officials said. update on the company’s website. “He attempted to re-ignite his engines to burn on landing, the undercarriage successfully ignited without experiencing a strong splash in the Gulf.”

Good luck in space

The starship continued to accelerate into space as the Super Heavy booster descended toward the bay, firing its six engines more than five minutes before it began its half-hour coast over the Caribbean, Atlantic and South Africa.

Moments after the engine shut down, the Starship opened the cargo bay door and began deploying a stack of 20 Starlink satellites. The satellites are the first of SpaceX’s improved Starlink V3 model, which significantly improves throughput and power. They’re also bigger and heavier than Starlink V2s, meaning they won’t fit on SpaceX’s smaller, workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

The Starship released the Starlink V3s using its Pez-like deployer, dropping them out of a slit-like hole in the side of the spacecraft. Flat panel satellites did not stay in space for long. They flew on the same arcing suborbital trajectory as the Starship and were designed to burn up when they re-entered the atmosphere less than an hour after launch.

In short order, SpaceX ground teams contacted each of the satellites via radio and laser communications and “downloaded key telemetry” before their fiery deaths. This provided engineers with a first look at the performance of the Starlink V3s in space.

The Starship, powered by six Raptor engines, is seen accelerating into space Friday in this image captured by the Super Heavy booster moments after it left the stage.

Credit: SpaceX

After the satellite deployments were complete, attention turned to briefly restarting one of the ship’s Raptor engines, something engineers foresaw on the final flight. The burn lasted about 14 seconds and was done visible to observers in South Africa. SpaceX hailed the demonstration as “a key capability for future orbital missions.” Gravity then pulled the Starship back to Earth.

The next steps for the Starship are to go into orbit and return the ship to its launch site. These achievements will allow SpaceX to begin launching operational Starlink V3 satellites, providing higher-speed direct-to-device connectivity for consumers and the US military, and the associated revenue.

An orbital flight for NASA puts SpaceX on the path to orbital refueling. This demonstration is critical for any Starship flight beyond low Earth orbit, including missions to the Moon in support of NASA’s Artemis program. NASA is working with SpaceX and Blue Origin to develop human-rated versions of the Starship and Blue Moon landers to take astronauts to and from the lunar surface.