SpaceX targets July 16 for Starship Flight 13, reveals what went wrong on previous launch

SpaceX has set July 16 as the target launch date for Starship Flight 13, the company announced. The flight will represent the second launch of Starship's Version 3 configuration and will largely mirror the approach taken during Flight 12.

Flight 12, which flew recently, achieved most of its primary objectives, making it a mostly successful test. SpaceX has revealed details about what caused issues during the previous launch, though the company found those problems manageable enough to proceed with a similar test plan for Flight 13.

Starship continues its iterative testing program as SpaceX works toward the fully reusable super-heavy lift vehicle. Each flight test builds on data from previous attempts, with the company making incremental refinements to both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage. The Version 3 configuration represents improvements over earlier iterations of the vehicle.

The July 16 target marks SpaceX's commitment to maintaining a cadence of test flights. The company has accelerated Starship's testing schedule significantly over the past year, launching multiple flights and gathering critical data on rocket performance, stage separation, and recovery operations. Flight 13 will continue this momentum.

SpaceX typically conducts multiple test flights over weeks or months, each designed to test specific systems and gather engineering data. The similarity between Flight 13's planned test objectives and those of Flight 12 suggests the company wants to verify that solutions implemented after the previous flight perform as intended under operational conditions.

The aerospace company has not disclosed specific details about what went wrong during Flight 12, only that the mission was mostly successful. This characterization indicates that while certain systems or test objectives did not meet expectations, the core mission goals were achieved. SpaceX uses this information to refine procedures and hardware for subsequent flights.

As SpaceX works toward the goal of making Starship operational for cargo