I’d probably characterize it as “progress.” It was the goal, after all.
It was disappointing to lose the booster, but at the rate they’re building them, they can accomplish their mission goals without recovering them; it will just cost more. And I’m sure they’ll work out the final bugs.
[Late-morning update]
Time-lapse of today’s Starship flight, from liftoff to splashdown, in just 150 seconds. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/1jGFPK4CYV
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) July 25, 2026
Elon has reported that if no serious problems are found in the post-flight data review, flight 14 will attempt to recover the ship in the tower-2 chopsticks.
The hardware for that flight are already well into their testing campaigns – could fly in August.
Sounds entirely reasonable to me.
SpaceX might also attempt a booster catch contingent on all 13 engines in the two inner rings lighting up for the first phase of the landing burn. If there are any failures-to-light that far up, the booster could be commanded to land, as best it can, in the water just off Starbase.
I also expect Flight 14 to be carrying a full load of 60 Starlink V3s.
“”””I also expect Flight 14 to be carrying a full load of 60 Starlink V3s.””””
Depends heavily on demonstrated margin on 13. 80 tons more payload plus several hundred m/s more velocity may not allow the necessary margin for recovery. Let’s see what happens.
It also would depend on whether they actually have sixty of them on hand in time. The payload margin is probably there, courtesy of the lofty trajectory of the booster, but then that may be contributing the recovery failure on said booster. We’ll see pretty soon.
I don’t think V3 satellite production is anywhere within miles of the critical path. SpaceX had a pretty good-sized stack of prototype V3s at Starbase over two years ago. My understanding is that the design has undergone at least one significant upgrade since then without benefit of going to orbit at all. The 20 that were tested and expended on Flight 13 doubtless have plenty of siblings nearby.
Payload margin on full-load deployment flights will come, at least in part, from de-lofting the ascent trajectory. Going more horizontal earlier, at the cost of a harder push through a lower-altitude Max-Q, payload margin rises. Flight 13 tested this and the results looked to be generally favorable.
Agreed. But Flight 13 was a test of at least three things intended to get additional margin.
1. Flatter gravity turn and acceptance of higher MaxQ loading.
2. No throttle-down for MaxQ.
3. 33-engine boostback at double-digit G.
The first two of these directly increase payload capacity. The only ill effects visible on Flight 13 that were likely due to these two aspects of a more aggressive ascent profile were what looked to be loss of a few trailing-edge TPS tiles from the flaps. This is correctable and, in any case, didn’t result in any re-entry damage to the airframe.
The very high-G boostback gets that job done with less prop than a more leisurely, lower-G boostback and reduces the total prop mass that needs to be reserved for booster recovery after staging. That means more prop can be burned before staging which increases payload.
This wasn’t a perfect flight in all respects, but most of Flight 12’s failures did not recur and even the problems that did, did so in a notably less-severe fashion. Very solid progress on all fronts. Enough so that I think Flight 14 will be more a working mission than a test flight though it will still, quite assuredly, be both.
The intact landing was pure gravy. The TPS team must have been turning handsprings.
Some people on X are asking why SpaceX isn’t going to try and bring the Flight 13 Ship back to Starbase for examination. It’s possible they’ll have a better example to examine as soon as next month. It looks like the Flight 14 Ship will be go for orbit and for a catch attempt. By the time they could get the Flight 13 Ship safed, towed to Australia, loaded on some form of ship, and transported to Starbase, they may have recovered one with the added benefit of it never having been in salt water.
As for recovering the Booster, it seems likely they’ll want to prove a complete boost back to controlled water landing before risking their only operational launch pad on a catch attempt.
The biggest likely problem with towing the beast anywhere is lack of suitable towing tackle on SpaceX’s leased vessel. But I might be wrong about that. I do recall some talk, before any of the previous missions had done a landing in the Indian Ocean, about possibly towing any Starships that survived their landings to Australia. Perhaps the chartered landing zone vessel does have such equipment aboard as a contingency.
Even so, a tow to Australia would be problematical enough. A tow all the way back to Starbase – or, more likely, Brownsville – would either have to cross the entire Atlantic after dodging around Africa or transit the Panama Canal after crossing the Pacific. The canal operators would likely take a very dim view of such a project.
Unless the tank vents can be closed after passivation, even a tow to Australia is probably a non-starter, never mind any return to Starbase, as it seems likely the Starship would founder before arrival at even the nearest shore.
My advice would be to get massive amounts of hi-res imagery of the beastie while still afloat, then play taps over her when she finally sinks out of sight.
A tow back to the US is silly. Tow it to Port Hedland in Western Australia, beach it and have a really good look.
What and give those Aussie’s a crack at it? It’d be like the MIG-25 defection all over again! LoL
Do you realise how many kegs of beer we could make out of that much stainless steel!
No doubt it could “Foster” a lot of “bar-bees”… 😉
SpaceXXXX
https://share.google/jBKcMCcLlxVImnUBh
It has been a long time since I’ve heard any of my countrymen talk about drinking Fosters.
Victoria Bitter is more like it or XXXX (Queenslanders can’t spell BEER).
My comment over at Scott Manley’s Patreon page:
I’m concerned about Booster return. Seems to me there are still some serious issues here. We had a good relight on the boost back burn, but not the landing burn. Assuming the issue goes beyond simple engine relighting issues, I’m thinking that not all of the ullage issues have been resolved. Especially if the booster is experiencing significant buffeting in the atmosphere. The new downcomer and it’s associated plumbing appears a likely issue since we didn’t see these relight issues on Booster V2. I’m leaning against Raptor issues since it has so far always involved more than one engine. Starvation causing an engine RUD that destroys other engines is a distinct possibility given the reduced shielding in V3. But it still points to propellant feed as the root cause IMHO. Capture of Booster seems more important to me than capture of Ship at least from a cost basis.
Ship recovery is more important in the short run. Think of it from a tanker perspective. For a moonshot, without quick tanker recycle, they’d have to have fifteen tankers lined up and ready to go. Boosters are simpler to build, so long as you can build and store hundreds of engines, which they can. But I think it will all be solved by next year this time.
Certainly Ship recovery from a crew perspective is more important! 🙂
I haven’t seen any clear indication of what is causing the booster failures, but slosh and such seems likely, especially given the other more reliable relights both on-ground and in-flight.
They’re also going to have the next iteration of Raptor-3 coming soon with ‘reliability upgrades’ – could be an important piece, depending on the cause of the booster issues.
I’m a little behind on my Starship/SuperHeavy news. Apparently the previous launch attempt and shutdown right after ignition was due to ice formation in enough engines that the launch criterion of no more than two engines failing triggered the launch abort. I’m unclear where the ice formed but will assume it was upstream of the turbo pumps since the failure was not catastrophic in the RUD sense. I heard it suggested (don’t remember where) that a possible source for water vapor in the lines might be due to the fact that the tanks use autogenous pressurization. Now that isn’t a specific property of SuperHeavy V3 but it is part of the system design. If true, this might not be as easy a fix.
I haven’t taken the time to research V3 SuperHeavy plumbing in detail. But it would seem to me that one would use autogenous pressurization on nitrogen tanks that would drive the dry N2 directly into the propellant tanks. Anyone know if this is the case? And how could water vapor get through the N2 barrier? Need some physical chemistry refresher.
This doesn’t sound like an easy fix.
Remaining afloat for an hour or several hours post landing and remaining afloat for days during a tow attempt to Australia are two entirely different things, IMO. I would be shocked if it wasn’t taking on water at all.
If they can get the floating booster back home, they will. Great souvenir. If not, no biggee.
Can’t be taking on too much water as it has drifted 140 kilometers NW and still afloat.
In the event of a water landing, please stay in your seats. Your ship is a floatation device.