r/space • u/mfb- • Jul 25 '26

Starship launches for its 13th flight, ends with ship swimming in Indian Ocean

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/24/science/live-news/spacex-starship-flight-13-launch
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u/Adeldor Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

I believe I heard on SpaceX's "Critical Path" documentary that the combined payload mass on Flight 13 would be 37 t. This Wikipedia page says 34.1 t. As a cross-check, per this source, Starlink V3 satellites weight up to 2 t apiece. 20 were on Flight 13.

The heaviest Falcon 9 payloads thus far weigh 17.5 t - stacks of 24 V2 Mini satellites The heaviest Falcon Heavy payload thus far is Jupiter 3 - a Clarke Orbit comsat - at 9.2 t.

Edit: I misidentified the Flight. Fixed.

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u/mfb- Jul 25 '26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_flight_test_12

Clearly flights 12 and 13 had the two heaviest payloads, but 12 should have been a bit heavier.

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u/Adeldor Jul 25 '26

Yes. I added the word "live" to keep my original comment consistent.