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Starship Upper Stage Floats After Flight 13 While Booster Is Heavily Damaged

Recovery of the intact upper stage will give engineers hands-on data to address heat-shield seam concerns, inform booster restart fixes, guide decisions for Flight 14.

Image
Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images; Shutterstock
© SpaceX via X
Starship's V3 booster roars off the pad with its 33 Raptor 3 engines, climbing over Starbase, Texas, on July 24, 2026. All 33 engines ignited normally on this flight — the vehicle's 13th test — before the booster separated and came down hard in the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: SpaceX via X

Overview

  • SpaceX launched Flight 13 on July 24, completing stage separation, deploying 20 Starlink V3 test satellites that briefly communicated, and achieving an in-space Raptor relight on the upper stage.
  • The Starship upper stage (Ship 40) made the gentlest intact ocean splashdown yet and remained afloat, and SpaceX has dispatched a recovery vessel to retrieve it for hands-on inspection.
  • The Super Heavy booster failed to relight enough engines for its landing burn, made a hard splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, and suffered heavy damage that likely rules it out for rapid reuse.
  • Elon Musk said the flight intentionally used higher acceleration to stress-test the tiled heat shield, but outside experts report white streaking at tile seams and signs that hot gas may have penetrated seams.
  • Regulators have not opened a formal mishap probe, SpaceX says it may attempt a tower 'catch' on the next flight pending data review, and NASA and investors are watching how heat-shield and restart fixes affect timeline and reuse plans.