Overview
- Booster 20 completed a full‑duration static fire of all 33 Raptor 3 engines on Friday, July 10, delivering roughly 24 seconds of flight‑like thrust and generating integrated telemetry for engineers to review.
- Ship 40 is in final outfitting and must be rolled out, stacked on Booster 20, and go through tanking and a wet dress rehearsal before flight hardware closeouts are finished.
- Regulatory notices place Flight 13 in a mid‑July window, roughly July 15–21 with some outlets highlighting July 16–17, but the FAA must close or exempt its Flight 12 mishap review before final launch clearance is issued.
- Mission goals include deploying 20 functioning Starlink V3 satellites, attempting an in‑space single‑engine relight on the upper stage, and running cameras and load‑sensing tests to image and measure heat‑shield performance.
- SpaceX says it has applied hardware and software fixes after Flight 12, including changes to startup sequencing and relight systems, and engineers inspected and repaired several engines transferred from Booster 19 for reuse on Booster 20.