Elon Musk’s Starship completes most successful test on 13th flight, delivers 20 Starlink satellites | World News

4 min readUpdated: Jul 25, 2026 10:34 AM ‘Friday’ and ’13’ have proved lucky for the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX. The space tech giant on Friday launched its Starship rocket on another test flight that marked the spacecraft’s most successful mission yet, deploying 20 next-generation Starlink satellites before making a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This was SpaceX’s 13th Starship test flight.
Standing 407 feet (124 metres) tall, the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. The mission lasted about an hour, ending with the spacecraft descending gently into the Indian Ocean, where it remained afloat, a first for Starship, news agency Associated Press reported.

Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
The flight was closely watched NASA, which is counting on Starship to serve as the lunar lander for its Artemis programme, including the Artemis III mission that aims to return astronauts to the Moon.

What changed this time?
The launch came after SpaceX replaced six of the 33 engines on the Super Heavy booster following a last-second launch abort on July 16, when several engines failed to ignite. The previous Starship test in May had also suffered engine problems that prevented the booster from making a controlled descent.
This time, all 33 engines ignited successfully at liftoff. However, not enough engines restarted during the booster’s return burn, causing it to descend too quickly and crash into the Gulf of Mexico instead of making a controlled landing.
The upper-stage spacecraft, meanwhile, continued its journey eastward, releasing 20 of SpaceX’s most advanced Starlink satellites at an altitude of about 200 kilometres before beginning its descent. The mission marked Starship’s 13th test flight and the second this year using the upgraded Version 3 vehicle.

A milestone for SpaceX
Unlike earlier flights that ended in fiery explosions or breakups during re-entry, Starship survived the return through Earth’s atmosphere and touched down intact in the Indian Ocean, more than 16,000 kilometres from its Texas launch site.
According to SpaceX, it was the spacecraft’s best re-entry yet, with only minor scorching visible on the heat shield. “We’re really pumped about this,” SpaceX engineer Kate Tice said during the livestream, calling it “lucky flight 13.”Story continues below this ad
Several of the experimental Starlink satellites carried cameras that captured high-resolution images of Starship’s heat shield during descent, transmitting detailed photographs even as the spacecraft floated in the ocean. The heat shield was also fitted with sensors to measure the intense thermal and structural loads experienced during launch and re-entry.
As part of the experiment, while most thermal protection tiles were black, a few were deliberately painted white to simulate missing tiles and evaluate the shield’s resilience under extreme conditions.
“We got all the heat shield data we needed and then some!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk wrote on X.

NASA Adminrator Jared Isaacman also congratulated the company, saying he was “excited for what will be learned from this mission.”

Pretty clear from this shot that @SpaceX knows where we are going! Congrats on getting Flight 13 underway. Excited for what will be learned from this mission. When Starship comes online, its capabilities will be game-changing, not least of which will be ensuring we never give up… https://t.co/aTSUCqUPcB
— NASA Adminrator Jared Isaacman (@NASAAdmin) July 24, 2026
Why the mission matters
SpaceX aims to perfect Starship’s heat shield before attempting to return the spacecraft directly to the Starbase launch site, where giant mechanical arms have already successfully caught returning Super Heavy boosters. Ultimately, both the booster and spacecraft are designed to be fully reusable.Story continues below this ad
The progress is critical for NASA’s Artemis programme. The agency hopes Starship will reach full operational capability soon so Artemis III astronauts, three Americans and one Italian, can rehearse docking with the spacecraft ahead of their planned lunar landing mission.
Beyond the Moon, Starship remains central to Musk’s long-term vision of sending humans to Mars and establishing a permanent settlement on the Red Planet.