Formally, almost the entire program of the thirteenth flight of the largest rocket in history has been completed. However, tests have shown incomplete debugging of a key element of the system. SpaceX finds itself in a situation of really tight deadlines: there are only two years and two months before the scheduled return of humans to the moon.
Today, July 25, 2026 at 1.51 a.m. Moscow time, Starship lifted off from the launch pad in Texas with the successful ignition of all 33 engines of the first stage. As expected according to the flight plan, the upper stage entered a suborbital trajectory after hot separation (the so-called separation of the stages, when the engines of the second are ignited even before the separation of the first). On it, the flight takes place along a ballistic trajectory, without completing at least one orbit around the Earth. SpaceX chooses it for the new spacecraft in order to avoid problems if for some reason it cannot descend from orbit as planned. On a suborbital trajectory, its descent is inevitable even before the completion of the first orbit around the Earth.
For the first time for ships and carriers of this type, the second stage launched a payload into space, rather than its imitation — 20 Starlink V3 satellites. This is the first launch for this type of satellite. Each of them weighs about 1.8 tons, which is three times more than the mass-produced SpaceX satellites, which make up the main part of the existing Starlink network. Their bandwidth exceeds the previous satellites by an order of magnitude. However, the large dimensions they need do not allow such satellites to be mass—launched on a Falcon 9 rocket - there is not enough head fairing size. There are no such problems with the much larger Starship.
Starship takeoff over its spaceport, view from aboard the carrier
Image source: SpaceX
Due to the suborbital flight path, the satellites were not placed into a circular orbit, but only into space for tens of minutes before entering the atmosphere. 14 only tested the deployment of solar panels, optical and radio communications with the Earth and other satellites. In addition, six more were used to photograph a nearby Starship from space to monitor the condition of its heat shield. After a brief flight, the satellites entered the atmosphere, where they burned up.
An important stage was the restart of the Raptor 3 engine in space. Such restarts are necessary for subsequent flights with refueling of the spacecraft in orbit.
After about an hour of flight, the second stage entered the atmosphere, slowed down the engines as planned and hovered for a short time over the selected point of the Indian Ocean. Then she fell into it, but, unlike previous test flights, she did not explode, but continued to float on her side. The company's employees conducted a visual study of the condition of the heat shield after entering the atmosphere. This should provide valuable data on working out the full reusability of the two-stage carrier.
At the same time, things didn't go so smoothly with the first step. After the hot separation, the stage did a flip before the engine decelerated. But their re-activation did not go according to plan: only 8 engines restarted instead of the planned 28. Accordingly, the first stage could not hover over the water of the Gulf of Mexico, it simply fell into it.
This happened despite the fact that on July 10, 2026, the first stage conducted a static test of the engines and they all worked fine on it. That is, we are facing some kind of technical problem with the Raptor engine, the most advanced of all liquid rocket engines on Earth.
The exact cause is unknown, but two days before the July 25 flight, SpaceX had already canceled the thirteenth Starship launch (with its postponement) due to the fact that four of the 33 first-stage engines could not be started. The reason for this was the accumulation of condensate in the engine compartment. In Texas, it was relatively humid with temperature fluctuations these days. Obviously, the problem of automation reacting to condensate will have to be solved in just a month: another Starship test flight is expected before the end of summer.
Although this flight was mostly successful, it means that the rescue of the first stage with a landing on a Mechasilla will not happen on the next flight. After all, it was necessary for the first stage to hover perfectly over the sea. At the same time, the successful flight of the second stage significantly increased the chances that the next time or two its flight will take place in a circular orbit around the Earth.
