SpaceX Sets Monday Launch for Starship Flight 13

BOCA CHICA, Texas — SpaceX has locked in a new date for Starship's thirteenth test flight: Monday, July 20, with a 90-minute launch window opening at 6:45 p.m. ET from Starbase in South Texas.

The company confirmed the schedule Friday morning, just a day after standing down from Thursday's attempt when four of the Super Heavy booster's 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite during the startup sequence, triggering an automatic abort at T-zero. Elon Musk moved quickly to explain the fix: "To be confident of a good flight, 2 Raptors will be removed and replaced," he wrote on X.

A Fast Turnaround After a Clean Abort

The abort itself showcased exactly how the system is designed to work. More than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen had been loaded when the automated sequence detected the engine issue and safely halted the countdown. Booster 20 was rolled back to its hangar, the two engines were swapped, and within hours SpaceX had a new launch date on the books — a turnaround measured in days, not months.

That pace reflects the cadence SpaceX has built across the program. Flight 13 comes roughly eight weeks after Flight 12 on May 22, and Musk has said Starship launches will become "incredibly common" as the company works toward rates that could one day reach thousands of flights per year.

The First Operational Payload in Starship History

Flight 13 is set to be one of the most consequential tests the program has flown. For the first time, Starship will carry an operational payload: 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, featuring advanced laser links, deployable solar arrays, and onboard cameras. Six of those satellites will photograph Starship's heat shield from the outside during flight — a self-inspection technique SpaceX has never attempted before.

The upper stage, Ship 40, will also attempt a single Raptor engine relight in space, a critical demonstration for future deorbit burns, orbital refueling, and deep-space maneuvers. Several heat shield tiles are painted white as imaging targets, while upgraded tiles on the aft flaps and load-sensing tiles will measure stresses through reentry. The flight ends with a targeted splashdown in the Indian Ocean, while Booster 20 performs a boostback burn toward the Gulf.

The satellite deployment builds on a broader Starlink hardware refresh that includes the lighter, faster V5 residential kit SpaceX unveiled this week, part of an ecosystem now serving customers across the globe.

A Launch With Wall Street Watching

Monday's attempt carries extra significance: it will be the first Starship launch since SpaceX went public in June under the ticker SPCX. Public investors will be watching a Starship flight in real time for the first time, and a successful V3 satellite deployment would mark a tangible milestone on the company's roadmap toward operational Starship missions, NASA's Artemis program, and ultimately Mars.

SpaceX will stream the flight live, with full mission details available on the official Starship Flight 13 page. If the weather and the hardware cooperate, Monday evening could deliver the program's biggest step yet — and give 20 Starlink V3 satellites their first ride to space aboard the world's largest rocket.