Azernews.Az

by Alimat Aliyeva

SpaceX has announced that the 13th test flight of its Starship super heavy-lift launch system is scheduled for July 16. The launch window from the company’s Starbase facility in Texas will open at 17:45 local time, which corresponds to 00:45 on July 17 in Baku time, AzerNEWS reports.

The upcoming Flight 13 mission will feature the Ship 40 spacecraft and the Booster 20 Super Heavy rocket. This will mark the second test flight of the upgraded Starship V3 configuration, which includes improvements to both hardware and flight systems.

One of the most important milestones of the mission will be the first attempt to deploy a real payload into orbit. Starship is expected to carry 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, with six of them equipped with cameras designed to monitor the condition of the spacecraft’s thermal protection system during flight. However, because the mission will follow a suborbital trajectory, the satellites will not remain in orbit and will eventually re-enter Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.

During the test, SpaceX plans to evaluate several critical technologies, including the in-space restart of a Raptor engine, the performance of the upgraded heat shield during atmospheric re-entry, and the controlled splashdown of the spacecraft in the Indian Ocean.

The company has also introduced software and hardware improvements based on data collected during the previous test flight in May. During that mission, the Super Heavy booster failed to complete its planned soft landing after experiencing an engine-related issue during the landing sequence.

Meanwhile, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has shared new details about the company’s long-term plans to build data centers in low Earth orbit. According to Musk, SpaceX could begin launching the first components of these orbital computing systems as early as next year, with major progress expected by 2028.

Earlier, SpaceX revealed additional information about the Starmind project, a planned orbital network of data centers designed to provide large-scale computing capacity for artificial intelligence applications. If successful, the project could become one of the most ambitious attempts to move AI infrastructure beyond Earth, using space-based solar power and advanced satellite networks.

The Starship program remains central to SpaceX’s future plans, including NASA’s Artemis lunar missions, potential Mars exploration, and the expansion of global satellite services.