SpaceX has moved the Starship 13th test flight back to the launch pad in South Texas after a July 16 last-second abort forced engineers to return the booster to its hangar and replace engines, according to Ars Technica. Liftoff is now set for Friday evening, putting SpaceX close to another major check on the vehicle’s path toward an orbital attempt later this year.
The schedule slip was brief by rocket-test standards, but the reason matters. A pad abort at the end of the countdown means the vehicle got close enough to launch that SpaceX had to stop, inspect, and make hardware changes rather than recycle the clock and try again immediately. Ars reported that engineers rolled the booster back to its hangar to swap engines before returning Starship to the pad.
When is the Starship 13th test flight?
Ars reported that SpaceX is targeting Friday evening for liftoff from South Texas. Starship is already back on the pad after the engine work, which means the next milestone is the countdown itself, assuming no further technical issue interrupts the attempt.
The test is consequential because Ars said a clean launch and reentry would put SpaceX on the verge of an orbital Starship flight later this year. In plain terms, an orbital flight would be a step beyond the current test campaign’s near-term goal of proving that the full stack can launch and that the vehicle can survive its return profile.
That conditional matters. SpaceX does not get credit for the next phase by rolling hardware to the pad or publishing a target time. The company needs the vehicle to leave the pad, fly the planned profile, and come back through reentry without the sort of failure that sends engineers back to the hangar with more questions than answers.
What else happened in launch this week?
Ars also reported that Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 reached orbit on its debut flight, a milestone Indian space officials called a “grand success.” The rocket is India’s first privately developed launcher to reach orbit and the country’s first commercial satellite-launch vehicle, according to the report.
Vikram-1 lifted off from India’s main spaceport on Sriharikota Island in the Bay of Bengal around midday local time. The flight reached a 280-mile-high orbit, Ars reported.
The launch was not frictionless. Ars said the countdown was delayed by more than 30 minutes while teams addressed a last-minute technical problem. After the countdown resumed, controllers gave the command to ignite the rocket’s solid-fueled first-stage booster, sending Vikram-1 off the pad.
Taken together, the week’s launch news is a useful split screen: SpaceX is trying to push a very large reusable vehicle closer to orbital flight, while Skyroot has just shown that India’s private launch sector can put a rocket into orbit on its first try. One is still waiting on Friday’s countdown. The other already has a successful debut in the books.
This story draws on original reporting from Ars Technica.
