Posted on 07/24/2026 6:12:44 PM PDT by aquila48
SpaceX launched its massive Starship rocket Friday evening from its company town and launch facility in Starbase, Texas, in a 13th test flight and the first since the company’s record IPO last month.
The rocket’s Super Heavy booster detached from the Starship spacecraft about two minutes into the flight, and made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf. The upper stage of the rocket made a “soft splashdown” in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX employees called the test flight “lucky number 13,” in a livestream of the event.
Elon Musk’s aerospace and defense contractor designed Starship, the largest rocket ever built or flown, to be fully reusable and to lift more cargo for less cost into orbit. Starship is considered crucial for the company’s goal to vastly expand its Starlink satellite network, among other missions.
About 18 minutes into Friday’s test flight, SpaceX successfully deployed 20 of its new Starlink V3 satellites into orbit, a first chance for the company to see how they performed in flight. The satellites were intended to burn up after about 20 minutes.
The new satellites, produced at a SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, are built to be larger, and more powerful than Starlink’s earlier satellites. They’re also equipped with solar arrays that generate twice as much power as prior generations, a SpaceX business analyst explained in a livestream.
SpaceX is now developing Starmind satellites, which the company intends to launch and eventually use as orbital data centers.
Besides using their largest rockets to launch the new, larger satellites, SpaceX wants to use the Starship rocket to bring U.S. astronauts back to the moon’s surface, and to eventually power manned missions to Mars. The company is preparing Starship for a major NASA test flight next year.
Friday’s test flight marked the second for Starship V3, the latest version of the rocket.
SpaceX hasn’t dispatched any recovery ships and will probably leave it be until it slowly sinks. If the U.S. had a submarine in the area it might be a good idea to expedite the sinking of that craft before the dirty Chinese get their sticky fingers on it.
“they should use the starships to launch the satellites into orbit “
They will. The upper stage has the capability to launch the larger satellites.
“park them in a geosync orbit.”
Too far away.
“Is it going to be recovered???”
Dramatic video of the controled descent.
I the future they will land on platforms.
““soft splashdown””
A controlled descent designed to land on platforms.
“What was the point of launching them, if they are to burn up after 20 minutes?”
Testing.
They actually are building fuel transfer capability into the Starship. So one will launch with a heavy cargo into high orbit, then a second Starship can be launched to join it, transfer fuel, disconnect to return to Earth, and let the first Starship go on its way to Mars with a refilled tank and full cargo bay already moved off the Earth's surface into orbit.
With the new underground flame trench, it seems Elon turned his Raptor3 engines to max thrust, hence the rapid ascent!
Some of those dispensed satellites contain newer data transfer rates technology and SpaceX was testing that. I heard that a couple of them had deployable solar arrays and those were tested as well. Lots of quick tests before burn-up. Totally worth the effort.
Pump and dump for the SpaceX IPO.
Amazing all the people giving their hearts to this scumbag.
How deep is the Indian Ocean there? Can’t have China trying to steal it. Or maybe they will or did self-destruct it after a short while.
Says the scumbag sleeper troll.
I bought some yesterday at 112 & 113.
It dipped to 110.85 briefly and then started going up.
Other guys in my office bought at 116 the day before.
If it goes lower next week I will buy more.
It was a great mission.
There were many great moments in this.
The pez dispenser worked great, it appears that they did an engine relight on the starship, i think they verified a lot of different systems.
There were some ‘rockets are hard’ moments too. The boostback failed and the superheavy hit the water at 100mph. One of the RVac engines didnt light and another one failed during ascent. There are some reliability issues with the V3 engines for certain. But the data they get from the recovered starship would be plentiful. I hope they do that so they can pick apart to look see what happened to the broken tiles and the rvac engine failure.
Congratulations to Elon Musk, Great mission and outcomes... Rockets are hard!
Musk had no control of the way the IPO shook out. What happened is what was what was predicted to happen. My nephew wanted in and I told him what was going to happen. You make it seem like Musk planned on cheating people out of their money. Goldman is more responsible for that than Musk, and they aren’t responsible either.
People bid it up on the IPO because there’s never been another company like Spacex, period. I think there’s up is the only place this stock is going down the road.
... launch with a heavy cargo into high orbit, then a second Starship can be launched to join it, transfer fuel ...
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It will take more than one to fill the tank which is one reason orbital refueling needs to be demonstrated repeatedly.
Yep
Not to sound like a Dem, but you can describe Elon in one word - “Freaking Amazing!”
“SpaceX hasn’t dispatched any recovery ships and will probably leave it be until it slowly sinks.”
The have or will dispatch recovery teams to analyze the spaceship. I don’t know what they will do with it in the end but I suspect they are aware of the Chinese.
There were some ‘rockets are hard’ moments too. The boostback failed and the superheavy hit the water at 100mph. One of the RVac engines didnt light and another one failed during ascent. There are some reliability issues with the V3 engines for certain. But the data they get from the recovered starship would be plentiful. I hope they do that so they can pick apart to look see what happened to the broken tiles and the rvac engine failure.
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One day in the next few years, all the parts will work as planned. Then they can go one to orbital refueling in the years after that proves reliable. But the next Artemis mission will have to find an alternative to Starship. Perhaps New Glenn v2 will be working by then.
But there is no way the US will be on the Moon by 2028 or 2030; certainly not before the Chinese. There are just too many hurtles and milestones to go for Starship and its very slow development pace to be of any use in the Lunar missions in the next 2 years .
When asked to describe Space X, I simply tell people that it’s the true beginning of Star Trek on Earth.
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