SpaceX is back for Starship Flight 13 – Day 3

After delaying its launch attempt yesterday due to weather, SpaceX is hoping today is the day for it to finally get its next Starship rocket off the ground.

Thunderstorms and rain delayed yesterday’s Starship Flight 13 launch to today, but if forecasts are anything to go by, today is looking like a beautiful day to launch a rocket.

Same as yesterday, SpaceX’s 90 minute launch window opens up at 5:45 PM CT. This means that SpaceX can launch anytime between 5:45 PM and 7:15 PM CT today. With Starship still being a test vehicle, delays and pauses in the count are expected, so don’t plan too much on 5:45 PM being that launch time. (However, whenever I tend to say that, SpaceX goes along and launches it right at window open.)

Updates on SpaceX’s launch status can be found on the company’s X account.

About Starship Flight 13

Starship Flight 13 will be suborbital, like all the test flights before it, its goal is to continue to gather flight data on the new V3 version of Starship. It will also test the changes made between Flight 12 and now. SpaceX made changes to Starship to fix what caused Flight 12’s booster to fail its soft splashdown and one Raptor Vacuum engine failing during flight, causing a lower than planned trajectory.

Flight 13’s Ship will also plan to deploy the first Starlink V3 satellites into space. While suborbital and planned to burn up on reentry within the hour, these new satellites will attempt to unfold their solar panels and connect with the network. Launching these larger and more capable V3 satellites is one of Starship’s key purposes for SpaceX.

Other than those new satellites, if you’ve followed previous Starship launches before, the flight profile will be very much the same. The Booster will attempt a soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, the Ship will attempt a precision landing in the Indian Ocean, and expect to see plenty of tests during flight like engine relights, aerodynamic maneuvers, and test heat shield tiles all over the vehicle.