Starship Flight 13 flew: SpaceX launched on the third try and put the first Starlink V3 satellites in space

SpaceX launched Starship Flight 13 on Friday, July 24, 2026, from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas — on the third attempt, after two false starts that had made "did Starship launch?" the question of the week. It flew. And it put the first Starlink V3 satellites ever built into space.

That is the headline, and it is real. What follows is the part that gets blurred in the hours after a test flight: a launch is not a single result. Flight 13 had at least six distinct objectives, and as of this writing some are confirmed, one is contested, and several have no reported outcome at all. This story keeps those apart.

What is confirmed

It lifted off. After the July 16 attempt aborted at roughly T-0 — about four of the booster's 33 Raptor engines failed to ignite — and the July 23 attempt was scrubbed by weather tied to Tropical Storm Bertha, the vehicle flew on Friday evening from Orbital Launch Pad 2.

All 20 Starlink V3 satellites deployed. This was the mission's point. Flight 13 was the first operational deployment of Starlink's third-generation satellites, and reporting from the flight describes the satellites separating and then unfolding solar panels and antennas. Six of the 20 were fitted with cameras aimed back at Starship's heat shield — the satellites were, in part, instruments pointed at the rocket that carried them.

The booster came down under control in the Gulf. Super Heavy separated about two minutes into flight and made a controlled splashdown off Boca Chica. Worth stating plainly, because it gets misread every flight: there was no tower catch attempt on Flight 13. A water landing was the plan, not a failure to catch.

The asterisk on the booster landing

Here is the detail that will matter more than the splashdown itself. Launch-day coverage notes that it appeared not all 13 engines lit for the booster's landing burn.

That is not a footnote for this particular vehicle. Flight 12, on May 22, 2026, landed its ship but lost its booster when several Raptor engines failed shortly after the boostback burn — and that failure is why the FAA required a mishap investigation and why Flight 13 was a return-to-flight in the first place. An engine-out on the landing burn followed by a controlled splashdown is a much better outcome than Flight 12's. It is not the same thing as a clean one.

We are marking that claim disputed rather than resolved, because "controlled splashdown" and "every engine lit" are two different statements and only the first is clearly reported.

What nobody can confirm yet

Three of the flight's objectives had no reported outcome when this was written:

• The ship's splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The plan called for a suborbital trajectory ending in a controlled splashdown off Western Australia roughly 65 minutes after liftoff. The plan is public. The result is not.
• The in-space Raptor relight. The ship was to restart a single engine during the coast phase. Coverage describes it entering coast and attempting the maneuver; whether the burn met its objectives has not been reported.
• The heat-shield experiments. This flight carried modified tiles, alternative attachment methods on the aft flaps and skirt, and load-sensing tiles measuring stress during an ascent deliberately flown at higher dynamic pressure. Those answers come out of data review, not video.

The tool below is built for exactly this window. It lists every published Flight 13 objective and grades it confirmed, disputed, or unknown, with the source for each — so you can see the shape of what is actually known instead of reading a flight plan as a scoreboard.

What Flight 13 Actually Confirmed

Starship Flight 13, objective by objective: what is confirmed and what is not

Every published objective of Starship Flight 13, graded against the record a few hours after launch: confirmed, disputed, or still unknown — with the source for each.

All (8)Confirmed (3)Disputed (1)Unknown (4)

• Starship Flight 13 lifted off from Starbase, Texas on July 24, 2026.

  Confirmed

  After an engine-ignition abort on July 16 and a weather scrub on July 23, the vehicle flew on the third attempt from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase. Live coverage reported liftoff.

  Space.com — Flight 13 launch updates, July 24 ↗CNN — Starship megarocket launches on 13th test flight ↗

• All 20 Starlink V3 satellites were deployed — the first V3s ever flown.

  Confirmed

  The flight carried and released 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, the first of that generation to reach space. Reporting describes the satellites deploying solar panels and antennas after release.

  Space.com — Flight 13 launch updates, July 24 ↗Starship flight test 13 — flight record ↗

• The Super Heavy booster made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf.

  Confirmed

  The booster separated about two minutes into flight and came down under control in the Gulf off Boca Chica. This flight did not attempt a tower catch — a water landing was the plan.

  Space.com — Flight 13 launch updates, July 24 ↗Space.com — Flight 13 mission preview (planned booster profile) ↗

• Every engine lit on the booster's landing burn.

  Disputed

  The splashdown itself is reported as controlled, but coverage notes it appeared that not all 13 engines lit for the landing burn. Engine-out behaviour on the landing burn is exactly what the previous flight's booster failure turned on, so the detail matters — and it is not settled here.

  Space.com — Flight 13 launch updates, July 24 ↗

• The ship completed its controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

  Unknown

  The flight plan called for a suborbital trajectory ending in a controlled splashdown off Western Australia roughly 65 minutes after liftoff. No confirmed outcome had been reported when this was last verified — the plan is public, the result is not.

  Space.com — Flight 13 mission preview (planned entry and splashdown) ↗

• The in-space Raptor relight test succeeded.

  Unknown

  Relighting a single Raptor in the coast phase was one of the flight's stated objectives, and coverage describes the ship entering coast and attempting it. Whether the burn met its objectives had not been reported at the time of writing.

  Space.com — Flight 13 launch updates, July 24 ↗

• The heat-shield experiments returned usable data.

  Unknown

  This flight carried modified tiles, alternative attachment methods on the aft flaps and skirt, load-sensing tiles, and six Starlink satellites fitted with cameras to photograph the tiles. Results depend on data review and imagery SpaceX has not published.

  Spaceflight Now — Flight 13 coverage (heat-shield test hardware) ↗Space.com — Flight 13 mission preview (camera-equipped satellites) ↗

• Flight 13 closes out the FAA mishap investigation opened after Flight 12.

  Unknown

  Flight 12 in May 2026 lost its booster on landing and drew an FAA-required mishap investigation. A successful return-to-flight is not the same thing as a closed investigation, and no closure has been announced.

  Spaceflight Now — post-abort engine work and return-to-flight context ↗

How this is calculated

Each row is one publicly stated Flight 13 objective. A claim is marked CONFIRMED only where launch-day coverage reports it as having happened; DISPUTED where accounts differ or the outcome is partial; and UNKNOWN where the plan is public but no outcome has been reported at the time of the last verification. Nothing is graded from the flight plan alone — an objective that was scheduled but not reported on stays UNKNOWN, which is the honest answer in the first hours after a test flight. Timestamps are the publication times of the cited coverage, not telemetry.

Data as of July 23, 2026 · verified July 23, 2026 · v1

Assumptions, limitations & sources

Assumptions

• · Objectives are taken from SpaceX's published mission profile as described in pre-launch coverage.
• · Launch-day live blogs are treated as reporting of record for events they describe as having occurred.

Limitations

• · Graded a few hours after liftoff. A test flight's full outcome is usually clear only after SpaceX publishes a post-flight summary, which had not happened when this was last verified.
• · Live-blog reporting is fast and occasionally revised. Where an outcome is partial or accounts differ, the row says so instead of picking a side.
• · Nothing here is telemetry. This is a map of the public record, not an engineering assessment of the vehicle.

Sources

• Starship Flight 13 launch updates, July 24, 2026 (live coverage) — Space.com, checked July 23, 2026
• SpaceX Starship megarocket launches on 13th test flight — CNN, checked July 23, 2026
• Starship Flight 13 mission preview: 20 Starlink V3 satellites, relight and splashdowns — Space.com, checked July 23, 2026
• Starship flight test 13 — flight record — Wikipedia, checked July 23, 2026
• Live coverage: SpaceX ready for second attempt following post-abort engine work — Spaceflight Now, checked July 23, 2026

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Why the V3 satellites are the real story

Starship gets the attention, but the payload is the business case.

Starlink's third-generation satellites are roughly 2,000 kilograms each — more than triple a V2 Mini, and far too heavy to fly economically on a Falcon 9. SpaceX has said each V3 is designed to deliver on the order of 1 terabit per second of downlink and more than 200 gigabits per second up, against roughly 80 gigabits per second downlink on a V2 Mini, with a full Starship load adding about 60 terabits per second to the network. (Those figures are SpaceX's own, reported through secondary coverage; treat them as design targets, not measured performance.)

Put together, that is the argument for the whole vehicle: Starship is not just a bigger rocket, it is the only way SpaceX's own next-generation constellation gets to orbit at a price that works. Flight 13 is the first time that theory carried real satellites.

The questions readers are asking

Did SpaceX launch today? Yes. Flight 13 lifted off from Starbase on July 24, 2026, after two scrubbed attempts.

Was it a success? Partly confirmed, partly unknown. The launch, the satellite deployment and a controlled booster splashdown are reported. The ship's splashdown, the relight and the heat-shield results are not — and anyone declaring a total success or total failure a few hours in is reading the flight plan, not the record.

Why did it take three attempts? Two different problems. July 16 was hardware: an automatic abort at about T-0 when roughly four of 33 Raptor engines did not ignite. SpaceX replaced and tested engines and static-fired all 33 before trying again. July 23 was weather — and specifically, SpaceX wanted clear skies so it could photograph the heat shield during the high-stress part of ascent. Those two events get conflated constantly; they are unrelated.

Why didn't they catch the booster with the tower? Because this flight was not supposed to. The published profile called for a boostback burn and a controlled water landing in the Gulf. Not every flight attempts a catch.

What were the cameras on the satellites for? Six of the 20 Starlink V3s carried cameras to image Starship's heat-shield tiles from outside the vehicle. Tile attachment is the long pole in making Starship reusable, and this flight was partly an experiment about tiles that happened to deliver satellites.

Does this end the FAA mishap investigation from Flight 12? No. A successful return-to-flight and a closed investigation are separate things, and no closure has been announced.

When is the next one? SpaceX has not announced a Flight 14 date. Post-flight data review on the heat shield and the booster landing burn will shape it.

What happens next

Two things to watch. The first is SpaceX's own post-flight summary, which is where the ship's fate and the relight result normally become clear. The second is quieter and more consequential: what the load-sensing tiles and the satellite cameras recorded. Starship's economics depend on a heat shield that survives reentry without a rebuild, and this flight was designed to stress-test exactly that.

We will update this story as those outcomes are confirmed. Until then, the honest version is the one above: it flew, it delivered, and the rest of the flight is still being read out.