Yesterday Ship 40, the Flight 13 ship, successfully completed a full 60-second six engine static fire on the static fire stand at the Massey's test site.
After doing that, Ship 40 returned to Megabay 2 to be prepared for flight, which should hopefully happen this month.
And today, SpaceX released the second of their 30-minute Starship documentaries. This one was recorded before flight 12 and features lots of enlightening commentary by various engineers. It gives good views inside the control room during two static fire aborts before flight 12, and one abort prior to the first attempt to launch Flight 12. Interesting discussion of what the problem was each time, and video showing how they scrambled to fix the problems. Cool views from up on the tower, of the SQD retracting. They also had video of the recovery crew off the coast of Australia, showing them setting out their camera bouys etc. Then video of the Flight 12 launch, payload deployment and landing. Including video of a COPV liberated from the ship torpedoeing one of the bouys.
This SpaceX documentary is more than worth watching, it's a classic!
Quote: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 “Critical Path”, 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 booster’s 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 stage’s 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 Starship’s 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 Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery down to operators to continue testing methods of analyzing Starship’s 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 Starship’s 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 Starship’s 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, Starship’s 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.
YazataJul 12, 2026 07:31 AM (This post was last modified: Jul 12, 2026 07:33 AM by Yazata.)
One of the engineers among the space-nerds following Starship discovered this in the SpaceX Critical Path video. While it's hard to read the screen, it can be made out when it's examined frame by frame using various means to improve the image. These numbers are for the Ship, when its main fuel tanks are depleted and its headers are full, just prior to the Ship's flip-n-burn landing.
Quote:Jackpot on ship prop info. Timed just a minute before splashdown, exact prop masses in each tank, the capacity, and the fill height among other items. Ship is carrying precisely 56,265kg of propellant by the start of the landing burn, but remember there is still gaseous propellant unaccounted for here which makes up a few additional tons. The physical height of the propellant level is also fascinating to see.
These figures imply a full load of the following:
~27,447kg lox header
~10,745kg fuel header
~292,125kg fuel main
~1,170,933kg lox main
Brings a total of ~1,501,250kg which is *relatively close enough* to the official SpaceX figure of a 1,600,000kg prop load on ship
Jul 3, 2026 01:23 AM
![[Image: HMO-4tYbgAA6ThC?format=jpg&name=medium]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HMO-4tYbgAA6ThC?format=jpg&name=medium)
![[Image: HMUgY__XMAAKlDV?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HMUgY__XMAAKlDV?format=jpg&name=small)
![[Image: HMZjstWWkAAt0PS?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HMZjstWWkAAt0PS?format=jpg&name=small)
![[Image: HMo4RPvXMAAT1cW?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HMo4RPvXMAAT1cW?format=jpg&name=small)
![[Image: HMuo6N5XUAAZNKK?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HMuo6N5XUAAZNKK?format=jpg&name=small)
![[Image: HM5unqYWAAAosIJ?format=jpg&name=small]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HM5unqYWAAAosIJ?format=jpg&name=small)
![[Image: HM6Q1JHXoAA60jj?format=jpg&name=large]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HM6Q1JHXoAA60jj?format=jpg&name=large)