#星舰本周四重新挑战发射 Starship Takes Off Again: Breakthrough and Ambition in the 13th Test Flight

After an automatic abort following a partial engine failure to ignite during the July 16 ignition phase, SpaceX announced that the Starship 13th test flight would be rescheduled to reattempt this Thursday (July 23). Musk initially said on a social platform that launch day was Friday, then clarified, “I mean Thursday.” A correction of a social media slip-up underscores the pressure that this launch cannot afford to get anything wrong—after all, the previous cancellation caused SpaceX’s market value to temporarily evaporate by about $100 billion.

The technical highlights of this test flight are quite dense. Starship will, for the first time, carry 20 new next-generation Starlink V3 satellites—satellites whose size and weight far exceed the current versions, which the Falcon 9 can no longer support. Six of the satellites are equipped with cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield during the reentry phase and transmit images in real time. SpaceX will also coat some heat tiles with white paint to simulate a missing condition, for testing imaging analytics capability. In addition, the mission will complete the “in-orbit relight” test of the Raptor engines that was left unfinished in the 12th test flight—an essential hurdle Starship must clear as it moves from suborbital testing to truly reaching orbit.

From a broader perspective, this is SpaceX’s first Starship launch attempt since listing this past June. If the deployment of 20 Starlink V3 satellites succeeds, in a fully loaded state a single Starship could deliver 60 spacecraft to orbit, which would greatly reduce the cost of networking the Starlink constellation. And Starship’s ultimate goal remains crewed lunar landing and landing on Mars—every test flight lays another cornerstone on the road toward deep space.

The launch window on Thursday opens at 5:45 p.m. U.S. Central Time. For SpaceX, this is not only a technical validation, but also a re-forging of investor confidence in the capital markets.