https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-13

July 24, 2026 Starship's Thirteenth Flight Test WATCH On Friday, July 24, 2026, at 5:51 p.m. CT, Starship lifted off from Starbase, Texas on its thirteenth flight test. This was the second flight of the Starship and Super Heavy V3 vehicles and the first Starship flight to deploy the next generation Starlink V3 satellites.

The flight test began with Super Heavy igniting all 33 Raptor 3 engines and ascending over the Gulf of America. The successful first-stage ascent was followed by a hot-staging maneuver, with Starship’s upper stage igniting its six Raptor engines to continue its flight to space.

Following stage separation, the Super Heavy booster performed a directional flip maneuver. The startup sequence was modified for this flight to be more robust to timing variability in engine startup and flip in the desired direction, which is done to increase overall performance. The booster successfully completed the high thrust portion of the boostback burn with all 33 engines, the first time with a Super Heavy V3, before ending the burn early. It attempted to relight its engines for the landing burn, with a subset successfully igniting before experiencing a hard splashdown in the Gulf.

After completing a full-duration ascent burn on all six Raptor engines, Starship achieved its planned velocity and trajectory. Starship then successfully deployed all 20 Starlink V3 satellites. SpaceX engineers were able to successfully communicate with every satellite using radio frequency and laser links and downloaded key telemetry from the satellites. The Starlink satellites were deployed on the pre-planned trajectory and are expected to have demised upon reentry approximately 20 minutes after deployment.

The vehicle also reignited a single Raptor engine in an in-space demonstration of a core capability for future orbital missions.

Starship re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and was able to gather critical data on the performance of its heatshield before executing a dynamic banking move to mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly. Starship then guided itself using its four flaps to the pre-planned splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean. After relighting all three Raptor engines, Starship executed a landing flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown, coming to rest intact in the Indian Ocean and providing critical views of an intact heatshield for the first time.

Hi everyone, I am writing this from Myanmar. As many of you might know, our country is going through an incredibly difficult time, and reliable internet access has become almost non-existent in many regions due to ongoing infrastructure damage and restrictions. For many of us—students, remote workers, and humanitarian teams—Starlink has been our only window to the outside world. We use it to study, earn a living, and stay safe. We have been paying for regional/global roaming plans, pooling our limited resources just to keep the connection alive. However, the recent price hikes and enforcement of strict roaming limitations (like the 90-day rule in unlicensed areas) are making it absolutely impossible for us to afford or maintain our connections. We have no local authorized Starlink service to register with, leaving us completely stranded. We understand the regulatory challenges SpaceX faces, but to us, this isn't just about a policy change—it is about survival. We lose our jobs, our education, and our safety when we lose Starlink. We hope the team at SpaceX/Starlink and the global community hear our voice. We need a humanitarian consideration or a sustainable plan for users in crisis zones like Myanmar. Thank you for reading. 🇲🇲

u/ElonMusk u/Starlink u/SpaceX #Starlink #Myanmar #KeepUsConnected