SpaceX's giant Starship gets a second try Thursday

SpaceX will try again Thursday to launch the 13th test flight of Starship, its nearly 400-foot rocket. The last attempt, on July 16, aborted right at engine ignition — four of the 33 engines simply didn't light, and the on-board computer stopped the countdown. Engineers have since swapped two engines. What makes this second try newsworthy on its own is the cargo.

That cargo is 20 Starlink V3 satellites — SpaceX's newest generation, and none have flown before. This is essentially why Starship exists — one giant launch can carry a batch that would take dozens of smaller Falcon 9 flights to deliver. But this specific test is 'suborbital,' meaning Starship will go up, drop the satellites, and come back down without completing a full lap of Earth. It's a rehearsal for real deployments, not one yet.

Keep reading — what to watch

Will the second try even clear ignition? Two engines were swapped, but a T-0 abort — meaning the abort happens exactly at the scheduled launch moment — usually points to a pattern issue with the engines themselves, not one bad unit. The 90-minute window opens at 5:45 pm Central Time. If it goes, this becomes a very ordinary Starship flight with a very novel payload. If it aborts again, the story shifts from schedule slip to whether Raptor 3, the newest engine version, is actually ready.