SpaceX has delayed the 13th flight test of its Starship rocket to Friday, July 24, after weather blocked ground tracking of the heat shield and a previous launch attempt ended with multiple engine misfires. Liftoff is now set for 5:45 p.m. CT from the company's Boca Chica facility.
Why the delay happened
The postponement came after weather conditions prevented ground-based cameras from tracking the heat shield during ascent — a key part of the test. The earlier attempt on July 16 was aborted when several Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster failed to ignite properly. Engineers have since changed the booster's engine relight sequence, a fix prompted by five engines that misfired during the boostback burn of Flight 12.
What Flight 13 aims to prove
The primary goal for this flight is to capture clear ground imagery of Starship's heat shield at higher dynamic pressure during ascent. To help with that, SpaceX painted some heat shield tiles white to simulate missing coverage and installed new load-sensing tiles to measure airframe stress. The booster will attempt a landing burn over open water, while the upper stage aims to deploy 20 Starlink V3 satellites. Six of those satellites carry cameras to photograph the heat shield from orbit.
Stock and market reaction
Shares of SPCX, the publicly traded SpaceX tracking stock, fell 1.73% in after-hours trading after the delay was announced. The stock has dropped 27% since its June IPO. Despite the slide, Cathie Wood recently named SpaceX her favorite stock. Elon Musk said the engineering data from Starship flights will help train the next model of Grok, his AI chatbot. SpaceX is set to post its first quarterly results as a public company on August 4.
