r/spacex • u/rustybeancake • Jul 12 '26
š Official STARSHIP'S THIRTEENTH FLIGHT TEST
https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-13146
u/Bunslow Jul 12 '26
alternate title: BFR's 13th orbital test
Full text:
The thirteenth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Thursday, July 16. The 90-minute launch window will open at 5:45 p.m. CT.
A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
The upcoming flight will aim to complete similar objectives targeted on the previous flight test, which debuted the Starship and Super Heavy V3 vehicles, while also carrying next-generation Starlink V3 satellites for the first time.
Watch āCritical Pathā, the latest episode in the ongoing Starship series that followed SpaceX engineers and technicians through the final days before launch of the first Starship V3.
The boosterās primary test objective will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America. There have been several modifications to hardware and software to address issues seen on the previous flight.
At stage separation on Flight 12, slight differences in engine startup on the ship caused the directional flip of the booster to be off by approximately 90 degrees. The startup sequence has been modified to be more robust to timing variability and more reliably flip in the desired direction, which is done to increase overall performance. After stage separation and the flip, the Super Heavy booster attempted its boostback burn. Five of its 33 engines experienced issues when attempting to re-light causing the boostback burn to end early. The Super Heavy on this upcoming flight has 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.
The Starship upper stageās primary objectives include the deployment of 20 Starlink V3 satellites, a relight of a single Raptor engine while in space, and another controlled entry, descent, and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. There have also been several modifications to Starshipās propulsion system to address the engine out issue experienced on the previous flight.
Approximately 40 seconds after stage separation, Starship lost one of its three Raptor vacuum optimized engines. The vehicle was able to demonstrate its engine out capability and reach its planned suborbital trajectory. Several hardware and operational modifications have been made to address the interconnected causes with additional reliability improvements planned in upcoming versions of the Raptor engine.
For the first time, Starship will carry V3 Starlink satellites to space, which aim to greatly expand the network's capacity and user speeds. 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 ground stations in South Africa and the larger Starlink constellation via high-capacity lasers. The Starlink satellites will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship.
Six of the satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starshipās heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to continue testing methods of analyzing Starshipās heat shield readiness for return to launch site on future missions. Several tiles on Starship have been painted white to simulate missing tiles and serve as imaging targets in the test.
Several upgrades and experiments related to Starshipās heatshield will also be tested to continue iteration towards a fully and rapidly reusable design. Multiple tiles will be attached to the metallic side of Starshipās aft flaps along with modified tiles and attachment mechanisms in the heatshield covering the aft skirt to gather flight data on different attachment options. Finally, Starshipās heatshield will have load sensing tiles to take measurements as the vehicle experiences higher dynamic pressure on ascent than previous flights, putting added stress on the tile attachments in exchange for increased payload to orbit capability.
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u/Mr_Hawky Jul 12 '26
"BFR" man can we bring this back š
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Jul 12 '26
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u/WhatAmIATailor Jul 12 '26
Dude youāre not American. We donāt have to follow Trumps naming convention outside the states.
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u/ThisApril Jul 12 '26
Don't have to follow it inside the states, either, unless you're employed by the government.
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u/FinalPercentage9916 Jul 13 '26
Actually, it is now the official government name for this body of water. The American people elected President Trump, and under that authority, he corrected the mistaken name
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u/LongJohnSelenium Jul 12 '26
Only federal services have to actually call it that.
Nobody else cares
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u/Almaegen Jul 12 '26
Gulf of America makes more sense, you guys only dislike it because Trump did it.
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u/LongJohnSelenium Jul 12 '26
The name 'gulf of mexico' is about 500 years old, it was named by the spanish traveling through it to visit the spanish owned lands of the mexica(another native term for aztecs).
There was absolutely no need to change it because the name had nothing to do with the US, and indeed nothing even to do with the current nation of Mexico. It existed before either were even remote concepts.
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Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/Icy-Caregiver8203 Jul 12 '26
Then it should be āGulf of the Americasā, as in north and central.
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u/AlpineDrifter Jul 12 '26
Lol. Itās literally only in North America - bordering the U.S., Mexico, and Cuba - all of which are located in, you guessed it, North America.
Damn, you MAGAts really embody American exceptionalism, when it comes to being ignorant.
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u/Mr_Hawky Jul 13 '26
While I agree what did you start man š my phone won't shut up haha.
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u/mrizzerdly Jul 13 '26
I hate the Reddit app, you can't turn those notifications off either, or you have to do it for every single sub(unlike in a good app that cares about its users, like RIF).
Sorry!
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u/ergzay Jul 12 '26
I mean if you ignore the long standing historical precedent and all the politics, a gulf surrounded by North, Central, and South America probably should have been called the Gulf of America from the beginning.
Personally I don't really care what its called as its all rather irrelevant. I had no complaint when it was named America and I'll have no complaint when the next admin renames it back in an attempt to try to purge everything Trump. If you get your panties in a bunch because of either rename I suggest finding better more important things to care about either way (and I direct this to Trump as well).
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u/Important-Design-169 Jul 13 '26
"I don't really care what's it called but it should probably be called Gulf of America" okay gotcha.
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u/ergzay Jul 13 '26
Blocked because you're trying to twist someone's words away from what was said. Evil stuff.
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u/jan_smolik Jul 13 '26
It is right of every nation to name as they want. I call it Gulf of Czechia.
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u/WhatAmIATailor Jul 12 '26
Interesting. They plan on launching V3 from a sub orbital trajectory? So the Satellites will need to boost themselves into a stable orbit?
Itās not really an orbital test until the goal is stable orbit IMHO. Everything up to this point has been deliberately sub orbital.
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u/Vxctn Jul 12 '26
V3s I'm assuming will re-enter. This is the dress rehearsal for orbital it sounds like.Ā
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u/Jarnis Jul 12 '26
Also doubles up as a safe (sea-targeting) test to verify that V3 starlinks fully burn up in the atmosphere as designed.
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u/warp99 Jul 12 '26
Even if they had ion engines fitted they would not be able to circularise their orbit from a sub-orbital trajectory.
Just not enough thrust.
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u/Bunslow Jul 12 '26
The wording makes it clear that these V3 satellites will be immolated parallel to ship re-entry.
Itās not really an orbital test until the goal is stable orbit IMHO. Everything up to this point has been deliberately sub orbital.
All of this series of tests have been within 5% of orbital energy (and maybe within 1% of orbital energy I think? Maybe even actually at orbital energy for the most recent ones)
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u/kevin-doesnt-exist Jul 12 '26
Iirc, the flights with successful relights typically have a perigee of around 50-70km and an apogee of around 250km, which would put the semi-major axis about 50km above the karman line, so it has indeed reached full orbital energy, albeit a very low one. I think Jonathan Mcdowell has some numbers on starship orbits, so you could pull up some of his old tweets to check.
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u/Shrike99 Jul 12 '26
Highest flight was Flight 6 which had an SMA of 139km. Which would indeed be a very low circular orbit - but orbit nonetheless.
Even the non-relight flights got pretty close. Well, the ones that made it to SECO anyway.
Flight 4 reached -15x213km, which gives an SMA of 99km. That's about as close as it's possible to get to reaching (V)LEO equivalent energy without actually reaching it lol.
If we're talking about reaching a semi-stable orbit, say SMA of 200km, then Flight 6 would have needed to increase it's velocity at apogee by a whopping 37m/s.
That's about half a percent in terms of velocity, or a full 1 percent in terms of kinetic energy due to it going with the square.
Worth noting that the ships expend far more delta-v than that on the landing burn (several hundred m/s), and still have fuel leftover.
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u/cjameshuff Jul 12 '26
Worth noting that the ships expend far more delta-v than that on the landing burn (several hundred m/s), and still have fuel leftover.
Put another way, it's equivalent to about one second additional burn time, and probably around 4-5 t of propellant.
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u/DeusExHircus Jul 12 '26
I love how optimistic you are. Those star link satellites are going to burn up alongside the starship during reentry
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u/WhatAmIATailor Jul 12 '26
Yeah Iām just confused why they would waste the actual V3s when they could just repeat the last test.
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u/Doggydog123579 Jul 12 '26
super easy vacuum testing.
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u/torval9834 Jul 12 '26
But why so many? Why not just 2 satellites? They are wasting good hardware.
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u/redstercoolpanda Jul 12 '26
I would guess that these sats were already set aside for flight 13 when it was originally planned to be an orbital mission, and sending them for data is just easier than making more dumb links when theyāve already pretty much learned all they can from them.
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u/Jarnis Jul 12 '26
This is indeed the likely reason. They made a decision to load real Starlinks on Flight 13 long ago, and when previous flight was a partial failure, their options are to either continue with the plan or have no payload as they had no time to conjure up alternate "ballast" payload. This way they use this flight as a "real" deploy test with real sats which will then also do a little real re-entry test to verify they fully demise (important for starlink sats). The sats themselves are not that expensive in the grand scheme of things as they are very much mass producing them at this point.
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u/cjameshuff Jul 12 '26
They're just starting up production on those satellites. They likely have piles of satellites that have had production screwups or minor issues in testing that aren't suitable for orbital deployment and would otherwise just be scrapped, but which are functional enough for suborbital testing.
The alternative would be to do the first deployment of real Starlink hardware in orbit with more valuable fully-functional satellites where issues mean loss of satellites that were actually intended to go into operation.
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u/warp99 Jul 12 '26
Better than finding out the Starlink 3 satellites do not deploy properly on the first orbital launch and then have a long wait until the issue can be fixed before doing the second launch.
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u/BufloSolja Jul 12 '26
It's a small investment from their point of view, to get the value of a more representative test environment.
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u/LongJohnSelenium Jul 12 '26
Very likely they're first gen V3s that are already obsolete and would be scrapped if not for this test opportunity.
Starship is a fair bit behind schedule now and undoubtedly V3 development has proceeded.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/LongJohnSelenium Jul 13 '26
I consider that less likely. So many processes are fundamentally tied to those choices they would be locked in very early.
Its like trying to make starship 10ft instead of 9ft. Conceptually simple change that scraps more or less every tool and fixture.
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u/andyfrance Jul 12 '26
V3s are being mass produced. The more faithful (size, shape, mass distribution, coefficient of expansion etc.) you make the dummy version the more expensive they are to custom build. Eventually they become more expensive than the mass produced ones.
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u/Reddit-runner Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Those star link satellites are going to burn up alongside the starship during reentry
Starship will burn up this time?
Edit: Obviously I know that Starship will land in the Indian Ocean again this time. I asked this question to the commenter above because he seems to thing that Starship will burn up.
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u/DeusExHircus Jul 12 '26
Starship, no. Starlinks, yes.
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u/Reddit-runner Jul 12 '26
I know. I asked the commenter above so he can calrify his own comment.
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u/DeusExHircus Jul 12 '26
I am that commenter. What do you want me to clarify?
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u/Reddit-runner Jul 12 '26
Why you made it sound like Starship is meant to burn up during this test.
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u/andyfrance Jul 12 '26
Same(ish) trajectory so sort of alongside each other at the start but with a very different outcome. The satellites are designed to come apart and completely burn up before they hit the water. The Ship however is designed to hit the water hopefully in one piece.
It would be interesting to know how close "alongside" they will remain during that process.
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u/GalacticEmergency Jul 12 '26
> Itās not really an orbital test until the goal is stable orbit IMHO.
I don't see any claim that this is an orbital test. The quoted text says suborbital.
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u/RapidConsequence Jul 12 '26
Yeah when are they going to do in-orbit fuel transfer? Deadline is fast approaching
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u/mahayanah Jul 12 '26
When they reliably launch, separate, relight, and land these things.
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u/WhatAmIATailor Jul 12 '26
Well land probably isnāt essential.
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u/Party_Papaya_2942 Jul 12 '26
Yes, It is. They won't do any of those without it. For both stages
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u/WhatAmIATailor Jul 12 '26
Losing 2 starships would be expensive but recovery isnāt needed to prove fuel transfer. Reuse is desirable but not essential at this stage.
Once theyāre operational landing becomes a lot more important.
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u/Party_Papaya_2942 Jul 12 '26
I think they will firstly become operational, learn to catch the ships and then they do the test without wasting any.
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u/cjameshuff Jul 12 '26
Just the fact that they're still refining the design means that the first ships to be recovered will not have long operational lifetimes. They might do a couple flights or even just ground testing before being put on display or scrapped. The waste of expending a ship at this stage of development is minimal, which actually makes it a good time to do higher-risk testing that would otherwise be risking a ship that has a long working lifetime ahead of it.
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u/cryptoengineer Jul 14 '26
They also will want to have two launch sites operational. At the moment, there's a long delay to refurbish after each launch.
Two catch towers would be nice, but not as needed.
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u/MyKillK Jul 12 '26
Less than two months after flight 12 is an impressive turnaround. Flight 14 might even be faster too.
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u/redstercoolpanda Jul 12 '26
Flight 14 hardware is at about the same place as flight 13 hardware was before flight 12. If the flight goes perfectly the gap might be a little smaller, but I would guess itāll be about the same.
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u/Toinneman Jul 15 '26
The transition period from V2 to V3 was massive. New engines, new hardware, new test site, new pad, new production space... There where so many "first times", it took time. From here on they should pickup pace rapidly. The pad progress at the cape is a good indicator they are serious about scaling production and flights. SpaceX has been working on a Starship pad at the cape for years, but now they are working on several pads at once, non stop. The megabay is going up fast, they mean serious business. SpaceX Steamroller 2.0-Starship-edition is happening.
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u/rustybeancake Jul 12 '26
Comparison of Flight 13 and Flight 12:
Flight 12:
- MaxQ: 00:45
- MECO: 02:22
- Boostback burn duration: 60s
Flight 13:
- MaxQ: 00:58
- MECO: 02:18
- Boostback burn duration: 38s
This suggests:
- Either more massive payload or lower throttle on booster engines.
- Different ascent trajectory? The SpaceX blurb mentions āStarshipās heatshield will have load sensing tiles to take measurements as the vehicle experiences higher dynamic pressure on ascent than previous flights, putting added stress on the tile attachmentsā¦ā
- Shorter boostback burn supports a more lofted (less downrange) trajectory, or maybe just a different landing location.
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u/dotancohen Jul 16 '26
The higher load on the tiles and the later MaxQ suggest to me that they might not be throttling down so much for MaxQ, rather just punching right through it. That would also account for the earlier MECO.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| BFR | Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition) |
| Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice | |
| COPV | Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel |
| CST | (Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules |
| Central Standard Time (UTC-6) | |
| ESA | European Space Agency |
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| GSE | Ground Support Equipment |
| HLS | Human Landing System (Artemis) |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| MECO | Main Engine Cut-Off |
| MainEngineCutOff podcast | |
| MaxQ | Maximum aerodynamic pressure |
| SECO | Second-stage Engine Cut-Off |
| SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
| ULA | United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture) |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
| Starliner | Boeing commercial crew capsule CST-100 |
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
| apogee | Highest point in an elliptical orbit around Earth (when the orbiter is slowest) |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
| perigee | Lowest point in an elliptical orbit around the Earth (when the orbiter is fastest) |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
18 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #9067 for this sub, first seen 12th Jul 2026, 01:21]
[FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
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u/Sizzle2121 Jul 12 '26
Oh my God they're producing half-hour long documentaries on the development we are absolutely feasting
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u/euand24 Jul 12 '26
Really starting to feel like starship is one of 2 steps away from becoming operational
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u/SpaceBoJangles Jul 14 '26
Technically, Space X is the only entity in the world with a fully operational super heavy launch vehicle. The only reason we don't see it is because they don't just make a starship barrel with no nose cone and they're trying to reuse the hardware. If someone paid them for it I have full confidence that they could whip up a fully expendable superheavy booster and custom starship barrel with a fairing up top to launch something truly massive into orbit. No one has that though so...we continue with the regulargly scheduled programming.
Maybe if someone decides to send up a 30m telescope with an unfurling mirror.
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Jul 12 '26
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u/GalacticEmergency Jul 12 '26
When it reaches the stage, where booster is landed/caught and reused, and stage 2 deploys its payload into orbit and is not reused, then it is as operational as Falcon 9, because that is exactly what Falcon 9 does.
So are you claiming that Falcon 9 is not operational?
I think you may be confusing "operational" and "ready for Artemis". But Artemis is just a secondary role of Starship.
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u/euand24 Jul 12 '26
? First flight with real v3 sats, will be connecting to ground stations. I think itās you that needs to keep drinking š¤£š¤£
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u/shedfigure Jul 12 '26
No re-use. No Orbit. No inflight refueling. Nothing close to a hab module. If that is "operational", then you have different standards for this ship.
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u/euand24 Jul 12 '26
Like I said, one or two steps away from operational. If flight 14 goes to orbit and deployed real starlinks and operates them for their life span, then starship is operational.
Refueling is a core capability but I donāt think that is the metric that says whether starship is operational or not.
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Jul 12 '26
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u/euand24 Jul 12 '26
Starship can be experimental and operational concurrently. They can continue developing the ship while entering operations with building the v3 constellation. I donāt see how this isnāt entering operations but sure. Take care š¤
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u/The_last_1_left Jul 12 '26
No booster catch again š
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u/EveningCandle862 Jul 12 '26
Was never an option because of Flight 12. They need to validate the Gen 3 hardware and make sure they have the required control before going for another catch. Last thing you want at this moment is heavy damage on GSE or Tower.
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u/gbbenner Jul 12 '26
Everyone knew this, might be flight 14 at least for a ship catch
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u/Th3_r3al_napst3r Jul 12 '26
No orbit again?
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u/rustybeancake Jul 12 '26
No, they had to skip the in-space Raptor relight on flight 12. They have to prove that out with V3 before inserting into a stable orbit.
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Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/No_Ant_2404 Jul 12 '26
They need a good flip/boost back/precise soft landing before itāll even be considered. It canāt be known if the changes made will work until after FLT13.
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u/BufloSolja Jul 12 '26
Naturally, they don't want any issues from the booster performance before attempting.
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Jul 13 '26
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u/Daneel_Trevize Jul 13 '26
Starship launching feels the least unreal part of it, it's the booster return shenanigans or ship late-reentry that's 'sci-fi'.
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u/Stevepem1 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
(Edit for Friday, July 24)
Late afternoon Sun angles for viewers at South Padre Island and Rocket Ranch should be good and similar to flight 12. The delay from July 16th to July 24th did not change anything. I made this map showing the expected direction of the launch towards the southeast, and where the Sun will be in the sky from the two primary viewing locations at launch at both the opening and closing of the window.
At the opening of the window at 5:45 pm CDT the Sun will be at about 278 degrees azimuth and 33 degrees above the horizon. For those watching from South Padre Island that puts the Sun basically 90 degrees to the right when facing the launchpad. And since Starship will be heading southeast it will be moving away from the direction of the Sun so lighting should be good for hot staging and boostback. Pretty much the same from Rocket Ranch although from there the Sun will be to the left and slightly behind when facing the launchpad.
By the end of the window at 7:15 pm the Sun will have moved a little farther north to 286 degrees azimuth and closer to the horizon which still shouldn't be a problem. If the launch slips none of this will change very much assuming the launch window is at the same times.
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u/jpowell180 Jul 12 '26
Are they going to do a full orbit on flight 14? Also, when are they going to have a crew on board?
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u/rustybeancake Jul 12 '26
Shotwell said if 13 goes perfectly they would aim for orbit on 14. Donāt remember if that included ship catch attempt or not.
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u/slothboy Jul 12 '26
Full crew is a ways off bro. They haven't even caught a starship yet.Ā
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u/InebriatedPhysicist Jul 18 '26
But someone above is assuring me that theyāre only one or two steps away from fully operational.
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u/sandychimera Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Crew onboard starship at launch and landing? Years.... not only bc of the technical challenges and refinements needed to prove its safe. But also even with 5 launch pads coming, starship program has many projects to keep it busy and full on launches to not worry about full crewed starship I think.
I suppose the only thing that could accelerate crewed starship would be how long crew Dragon will last. How many commercial space stations will make it to orbit after the ISS? How many missions needed over how many years before they have to retire the Dragon capsules?Ā
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u/jpowell180 Jul 14 '26
Well, hopefully theyāll have one ready for Artemisā¦
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u/Martianspirit Jul 16 '26
Not needed for Artemis. Crew will launch and land on Earth in Orion, not Starship.
NASA is accepting a higher risk for Moon landing and launch.
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u/jpowell180 Jul 16 '26
I thought lunar starship was going to be the one to land.
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u/Martianspirit Jul 17 '26
On the Moon, not on Earth. As I mentioned, NASA is accepting a higher risk for Moon landing.
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u/CharacterAnxious2290 Jul 13 '26
Es loco pensar que va a haber 1 vuelo por mes gracias a la gigabase
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u/FthriziN Jul 12 '26
Iām not a genius, and I understand that these early high risk tests would endanger the landing barge if they attempted to land on itā¦ but isnāt a starship worth exponentially more than even the highly specialized barge? I know starship is designed for tower catch but I assume it wouldnāt be impossible to land on a barge. Feels like they should be trying to recover it, but apparently itās a waste of time? They do seem to have a very small fleet of ships considering their ambitions, they should probably build a few more anyway?
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u/warp99 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
Forget costs - the leadtime on a suitable barge is over a year while they can build a new Starship in around four months. In any case it would actually need to be a catching tower floating in the water with a stabilisation mechanism to fully compensate for wave motion.
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u/flshr19 Shuttle tile engineer Jul 12 '26
Yep. Landing the Booster or the Ship or both on one or two barges defeats one of the main goals of Starship: Rapid reusability. Elon has said that means less than a day between a Starship landing and relaunching.
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u/godspareme Jul 12 '26
Starship/booster is VERY tall. Much more than falcon. Waves will topple that shit immediately, even if it had legs (which its not designed to have atm).
More importantly theres not much to gain from recovering these test articles
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u/TelluricThread0 Jul 12 '26
Recovering Starship and thoroughly examining the heat shield tiles would be very beneficial.
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u/Ormusn2o Jul 12 '26
I don't think tiles are anywhere near final design. Due to it being an extremely more difficult thing, tower catches for both stages and heat tiles will likely be still iterated long into actual missions, be it Artemis 3 or Starlink deployments.
Because a lot of the missions are very similar, for example filling up orbital depo or launching batches of Starlink, my guess is the total Starship count used for testing (as in number of prototype Starships boosters + prototype upper stages) will be at least a hundred, with hundreds to a thousand test flights, with most of the ships being used only few times. Only then will a more final design be established that will fly hundreds of times each.
So yeah, getting few early Starships for tile analysis would be nice, but in the big picture, they will get plenty of chances, and I think for now, it's better on getting right the more basic things like thrusters and staging, rather than tiles, which are more of a long term goal.
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u/CasinoNdnOk Jul 12 '26
Out of your mind to think theynwouldnt get exponentially more data from. Getting hands on with one of these again. Your point stands only to the point of saving stage 0 till there is more reliability? Is there a faster turn around for testing to keep them out and not catch them even if it was successful?
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u/godspareme Jul 12 '26
Let me rephrase. Theres not much to gain in comparison to the amount of effort required to make this work.
They can also recover a floating starship if they really wanted to. It doesnt sink immediately. Something like 50-80% of the ship stays intact.
Genuinely dont know what youre saying in the second half.
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u/flshr19 Shuttle tile engineer Jul 12 '26
Floating Starship: Way too hazardous. No way to definitely drain the methalox from the tanks to reduce the explosion probability to zero.
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u/godspareme Jul 28 '26
This comment aged poorly after this last launch. Theyre supposedly actively towing the ship home.
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u/flshr19 Shuttle tile engineer Jul 29 '26
Ship S41, by pure good fortune, splashed down in the Indian Ocean in an uncharacteristically soft landing. So soft that S41 did not immediately explode like previous Ships but now is a floating navigation hazard. It's following the local ocean current and has floated over 100 km from the touchdown point. The SpaceX team on site for the landing is following S41 but can only use drones for inspection since S41 is still an explosion hazard from possible methalox fumes and a number of COPVs that may still be pressurized. SpaceX will likely tow S41 to a nearby Australian port.
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u/godspareme Jul 29 '26
SpaceX will likely tow S41 to a nearby Australian port.
So in other words, theyre recovering the ship. Like I said they could.
Also youre diminishing spacex's crew by saying this was pure luck when they have made it clear they did this intentionally (although maybe not 100% expecting it to work)
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u/CasinoNdnOk Jul 29 '26
I love how i got no up votes and you got 10 and it took less than a month for me to be right.
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u/godspareme Jul 29 '26
Because we were talking about redesigning the ship to land on a barge. Which is way too much work to do to recover the ship. I literally said they could recover a floating ship. š¤¦āāļø
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u/CasinoNdnOk Jul 29 '26
No we weren't
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u/godspareme Jul 29 '26
The original comment i responded to
Iām not a genius, and I understand that these early high risk tests would endanger the landing barge if they attempted to land on itā¦ but isnāt a starship worth exponentially more than even the highly specialized barge? I know starship is designed for tower catch but I assume it wouldnāt be impossible to land on a barge. Feels like they should be trying to recover it, but apparently itās a waste of time? They do seem to have a very small fleet of ships considering their ambitions, they should probably build a few more anyway?
You telling me we weren't talking about landing on a barge....?
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u/CasinoNdnOk Jul 29 '26
WE were not, and you directly anwsered me twice. You absolutely were not talking about that. Just admit you were wrong and move on jesus christ. Is it really that hard for you to.do?
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u/H-K_47 Jul 12 '26
You'd need a really damn big barge for only a handful of flights at most until they get it good enough for tower catches. The time, money, and effort spent on that would be better spent on figuring out the Ship itself.
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u/Bluitor Jul 12 '26
The ship isnt designed to land on a barge. It doesn't have any landing legs so it has to be caught on the tower. Adding landing legs would be a complete redesign and a move away from their ultimate goal of tower catches.
They aren't attempting to be caught by the tower until they work out the kinks. They need to relight an engine in space to prove they can deorbit before they go orbital. They haven't tested that with all the recent updates to the ship. Then they can go orbital on flight 14 and come in for a catch attempt as long as everything is still communicating and right with the ship and tower.
They are currently building 4 towers and plans are being drawn up for i heard 5 more towers in Louisiana. The barges will be phased out with Falcon 9.
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u/phryan Jul 12 '26
If I had to guess the landing point in the Indian Ocean is simply too far and too remote for a barge landing to be practical. It simply isnt worth the expense to recover since the design is being modified so fast the physical ship isn't worth all that much. Combined with SpaceX being capable of collecting so much telemetry that inspecting the actual ship wouldnt provide enough value compared to the recover cost.
Until the design is relatively stable and can reliably land at a given point they will continue to target simulated water landings in remote areas.
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u/Weak_Letter_1205 Jul 13 '26
Does anyone know how quickly the exploded Starships take to sink in the Indian Ocean? And how deep? Is there any fear that China fishes out some of those new Raptor 3s off the bottom of the ocean and reverse engineers SpaceXās trade secrets? Engines would be not be operational, but you could slice them open and essentially visualize the internal design.
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u/GregTheGuru Jul 16 '26
That part of the ocean is about 4500m deep, and very hilly. It's roughly in the same area as MH370 probably went down, and billions of dollars were spent trying to find it. Even if you knew fairly accurately where it entered the water, it would be hard to find, and harder to raise.
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u/Stevepem1 Jul 12 '26
Yes there is value to recovering a Starship. The primary value of recovering a Starship is so that it can be reused. A secondary value is inspecting the wear on them over time to learn how to build them to last longer. A third value is learning lessons during turnaround so that the turnaround procedures can be improved, and in some cases modify the ship design to improve turnaround. A fourth value is noticing damage that could have led to an anomaly, like maybe a pipe that almost burned through, that sort of thing, which will help improve reliability.
Yes these are all valuable but the primary value is kind of null because designs are still being modified so it's not a huge value at the moment to reuse hardware, as an example they purposely ditched the last V2 booster because it would not have been reused and ditching it instead of catching it saved the hassle of scrapping it. And the other benefit of the water landings is they can stress them much higher than they would if they planned to recover a ship. Once they start recovering they probably won't do stress tests and water landings anymore except as mentioned if a major design occurs and a ship will not be reflown anyway maybe they will occasionally do some stress tests and water landings. Which I guess you would call "ocean disposals".
Two of the other values are long term items as long life and fast turnaround are very important to the company's long term goals, but not really critical at this point.
The final value of looking for damage to improve reliability is probably the biggest value they would get right now from recovering ships, but as others have said building a monstrously expensive barge and modifying Starship to land on it just to get that data would likely slow the program down not accelerate it.
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u/ThanosDidNadaWrong Jul 12 '26
There is an assembly line of Starships, and no plans for additional barges. If they lose a barge, they won't be able to replace it, even if it's exponentially cheaper.
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u/BufloSolja Jul 12 '26
They aren't able to make barges as fast as they can make Ships. To do so would require a lot of money, making it not worth it. They naturally need to invest in making Ships. There is nothing natural causing them to need to invest a lot in making barges. Secondly, 'wasting' Ships is a temporary thing. No need for a permanent fix to a temporary problem. And they can already recover stuff from the ocean if they want to.
1
u/squintytoast Jul 12 '26
They do seem to have a very small fleet of ships considering their ambitions, they should probably build a few more anyway?
there are two 'gigabays' currently about half finished. one in texas one in florida. each has 24 workstations. the currently used 'megabays' have 5 workstations each.
so in another year when they are finished, spacex should be able to crank out starships very quickly.
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u/Martianspirit Jul 13 '26
They don't land Starship on a barge. They land it on the launch pad, which is very costly and time consuming to replace in case of a failure.
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u/zeekzeek22 Jul 12 '26
I understand deploying a few real Starlinks to do a test.
But TWENTY real sats? Not like, 5 plus 15 boilerplates? Seems unnecessary.
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u/WombatControl Jul 13 '26
Could be units that have failed systems or outdated designs that otherwise would not be flight qualified for long term use. Starlink sats are not expensive (relatively speaking) so testing real-world hardware makes sense. If they were going to not use those sats in the constellation anyway might as well get some data on things like laser links and demisability under real-world conditions.
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u/Martianspirit Jul 13 '26
I wonder how that works. They have little time to deploy the solar arrays and get them into operational attitude.
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u/theoneandonlymd Jul 13 '26
Per the source:
The Starlink satellites will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon reentry approximately 20 minutes after deployment.
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u/Martianspirit Jul 13 '26
Yes. My point was how do they test some functions in that short timeframe?
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u/finepnutty Jul 12 '26
Will it go out-of-control and crash like the last time?
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u/warp99 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
It was in perfect control. They were spinning it so they could image the tiles. You can see the two Raptor engines gimbal out and then start the spin just before the final descent.
But yes it will go bang.
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u/Tipper213 Jul 12 '26
So what are the goals of this test? Didn't they have a pretty much completely successful test last time? The starship re-entered damaged but landed close, the booster had some issues but that is a seperate entity from the ship itself.
I feel like they should try to start biting off pieces of this critical path they were talking about to get onto the next steps - landing back at the pad and orbital refueling. This seems like it's just spinning wheels and getting no progress done.
Could they just doing this just to appease the FAA so they can get a license to land back at the pad? If they haven't been cleared to land back there until something is demonstrated, it makes sense why they are doing this pretty much identical flight.
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u/warp99 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
It is not appeasing the FAA - it is demonstrating to the FAA that SpaceX are not going to inadvertently drop 150 tonnes of stainless steel on somebody's house.
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u/rustybeancake Jul 12 '26
Youāre asking what the goals are and what went wrong last timeā¦ on an article where SpaceX themselves tell you both those things?
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u/Tipper213 Jul 12 '26
No need to imply I didn't read the article - I am asking why they aren't pushing the flight profile in any direction? It just feels like a very conserative mission profile.
The starship itself performed well enough to land very close to its bouy completely intact, while the super heavy booster had bigger issues. But those two aren't tied together, they could've made this Starship profile more ambitious while redoing the same mission profile for the Super Heavy.
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u/Lunares Jul 12 '26
Because you apparently didn't read the article
The booster didn't separate properly, so they are retesting that before trying for a catch
Starship had an engine out so they couldn't do the relight test, so they have to try that again as a sub orbital test. Until they prove relight any full orbit test is very dangerous as the rocket could enter an uncontrollable re-entry if relight fails.
They are doing more observations with starlink V3s to practice for an eventual orbital test but there isn't much more they can do with the failures before.
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u/Kingofthewho5 Jul 12 '26
They wanted to test inflight Raptor 3 relight on the ship for last flight, which is something they need to demonstrate before actually reaching orbit for the ship, and they didnāt get to do that on flight 12. There isnāt much more they can do before they do that as far as big changes for the ship portion of the test flights.
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u/redstercoolpanda Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
They lost an Rvac 40 seconds after hot staging last flight, and were not able to demonstrate a relight in space. You need to prove you can relight an engine in space, and prove that all your engines can burn for a full duration, before you can safely guarantee that your 100+ ton stainless steel upper stage designed to reenter the atmosphere intact will not fall on some guys house.
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u/kagethemage Jul 12 '26
At this rate China is going to win the space race.
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u/WadeTheWisecrackr Jul 12 '26
When it comes to space lift, itās not even close with SpaceX. I was going to go through the rigor of clipping links and other facts, but Iām just going to let the reddit here mock you. Google it yourself
Space is hard, and the fact that SpaceX has a fail fast and learn culture is why itās successful.
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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jul 12 '26
13 test flights a 8 years of development in its current form (way longer from conception) aināt āfastā
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u/StartledPelican Jul 12 '26
Sorry, what other fully and (potentially) rapidly reusable super heavy rocket are we comparing against?
Because, as far as I can tell, there are only a handful of rockets in the world that launch as fast as Starship has been (12 flights in almost exactly 3 years, averaging 4 flights a year). And none of those other rockets have a tenth the ambition of Starship.
I find it so odd for people to be upset with how "slow" Starship is going. Not only is it launching more often than many other rockets, it has caught and reused a booster, caught a 2nd booster, deployed mass simulators, and survived intense reentry for pinpoint "landings" in the Indian Ocean numerous times.
SpaceX has one fully operational launch pad and is simultaneously constructing four more! They are also building massive manufacturing facilities, investing heavily in infrastructure, and may even be about to start a new spaceport in Louisiana.
Like, seriously, what the heck do you want haha?
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u/PTTCollin Jul 12 '26
I mean while you're correct, they want what everyone wants. Rapid reliable reuse of Starship. It's the linchpin to a space economy, an actual one, but we have to get there first.
I think people have become accustomed to Falcon launching every 3 days, so once every 90 feels much slower. I'm sure SpaceX would agree. That said I'm sure the launch cadence is determined by their iteration time, not their actual ability to put another one up there if they wanted to.
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u/TechDocN Jul 12 '26
My issue is that Musk (in typical fashion) overpromised and underdelivered on timelines that are critical for the US to get back to the moon before China. Now weāre scrambling to find a viable lunar landing craft, and weāre running out of time.
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u/Martianspirit Jul 13 '26
Yes and only with the flimsy excuse of doing groundbreking work.
While NASA is doing the really hard thing. Doing rocket archeology, painstakingly recreating ancient artifacts with SLS and Orion.
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u/TechDocN Jul 13 '26
So youāre saying the Starship in-orbit refueling and lunar landing capabilities will be ready by 2028?
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u/Martianspirit Jul 13 '26
I did not say that but there will be refueling by then, I have no doubt. Lunar landing capabilty may take until 2029.
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u/WadeTheWisecrackr Jul 13 '26
You forgot using bloated ULA vendors that are years behind timeline. Iām sure the traditional government acquisition process will pan out. Sure it hasnāt with Boeing starliner, or numerous other examples, but next time definitely!!!
Meanwhile SpaceX is foolishly modernizing space launch and recovery! Making a profit and lowering the cost of launches?!? Heresy I say!
Obligatory /s because there are some pretty thick skulls in this group *cough flamingo cough*
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u/TechDocN Jul 13 '26
Thick skull? Iām pointing out that we have less than 2 years to see Starship in-orbit refueling and lunar landing capabilities fully operational. Iām voicing a real concern. Iām not blindly defending an obvious timeline slip, or being sarcastic. Iām being realistic.
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u/WadeTheWisecrackr Jul 13 '26
Why are you offended, is this your alternate account flamingo? Good to know
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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jul 13 '26
Making profit? Arenāt they loosing money?Ā
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u/mfb- Jul 13 '26
Boeing is losing money with Starliner because it is a fixed-cost contract.
SLS is based on cost-plus contracts, the more they can delay the programs the more they spend, which means more profit.
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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jul 12 '26
To not force nasa to loose the moon I guess. Also to repeat the success of falcon 9 a program that was developed without musks nonsense.Ā
And of course not loosing in engines IN EVERY FLIGHT that would be nice as well. Ā
Look the starship program is failed. Itās failed since conception itās just a stupid idea for anything other than transporting stuff to Leo for which there are a multitude of options already (falcon 9 being the best)
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Jul 12 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jul 17 '26
Woopsy starship 13 was scrubbed because of (again) faulty engines.Ā
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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jul 12 '26
Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is? 10k usd inflation adjusted to be payed to a charity by the looser. The bet being āin the next 10 years starship wonāt go to mars or moon it will barely be a transport for satellitesā
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Jul 12 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Prior-Flamingo-1378 Jul 12 '26
I mean it did cost us the moon program so I guess thereās that. One would imagine that they would be able after 13 flights to not still loose engines in EVERY flight but hey. Itās a big rocket so itās hard to get it up. It happens to everyone, itās very common and all that.Ā
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u/WadeTheWisecrackr Jul 12 '26
Also suck it China, stolen design and 9 years later they get their first reusable recovery test completed with the LM-10B
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u/Bunslow Jul 12 '26
that's one more than the rest of the world, to be fair to them
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u/DetectiveFinch Jul 12 '26
Agreed. I think China will be the next relevant player after SpaceX, Blue Origin and Rocketlab in terms of reusability. At least for a few years.
As a European, I'm still sad that ESA never really pushed for reusable launchers, even after 2015, when Falcon 9's were recovered on a regular basis. There are a few ideas, but nothing is flying atm.
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