Photo Gallery: SpaceX Turns A Corner With Starship Flight 13

A SpaceX Starship-Super Heavy rocket lifted off from Boca Chica Beach, Texas—a region now known as Starbase—at 5:51 p.m. local time on July 24 to begin the program’s 13th integrated flight test.

With all engines performing as planned, the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft separated, setting the stage for the second test run of the next-generation Version 3 (V3) system.

Flight 13 exceeded the previous flight’s achievements with a successful boostback burn of the Super Heavy first stage. However, plans to relight the vehicle’s 13 center engines for the landing burn were unsuccessful, and the booster splashed down hard in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Starship achieved its planned suborbital trajectory, resolving the issues that caused one of its six Raptor engines to fail during Flight 12 on May 22. On Flight 13, SpaceX was able to relight a Raptor 3 engine in flight for the first time, building confidence for orbital operations.

After several tests with dummy spacecraft, the Starship released 20 operational—albeit short-lived—Starlink V3 satellites. The satellites deployed solar arrays and antennas, tested thrusters and connected to the Starlink constellation in low Earth orbit.

The biggest surprise of Flight 13 was its quiet conclusion: The Starship splashed down so gently in the Indian Ocean that it remained intact after falling over—a first. Pending postflight analysis, SpaceX might attempt to fly the next Starship back to its launch tower instead of landing in the ocean, which would be another first.

Heat shield technology has evolved since the pioneering days of the space shuttle, but is still expected to be the pacing item for Starship flight operations.

Starship customers include NASA, which hired SpaceX for a Starship flight test next year to demonstrate rendezvous and docking techniques with a crewed Orion spacecraft.