Flight 13 of Starship was (mostly) a triumph for SpaceX

The miracle of the latest test flight of the SpaceX Starship was not the launch, as spectacular as it always is. The true miracle of the Starship’s 13th flight occurred at the very end.

Whereas previous “soft landings” resulted in its explosion the moment the Starship touched the Indian Ocean, this time, the largest human-made object ever to fly in space landed like a ballet dancer and wound up floating in the water intact, still and sending telemetry. Elon Musk has ordered the Starship’s recovery, a monumental task, considering its size and mass.

SpaceX was able to extract a mountain of data from the telemetry and from drones flying over the floating rocket that will be invaluable for future test flights. Of particular interest was the condition of the heat tiles on the Starship which, for the first time, could be examined closely after reentry. The drones discovered damage to the tiles that may hamper rapid reusability crucial for operation of the launch vehicle.

The Starship also fulfilled a number of other goals, including deploying 20 functioning Starlink satellites and restarting one of the Raptor engines midflight. The only other major anomaly occurred when one of the Raptor engines on the SuperHeavy booster failed to light during the descent into the Gulf, causing the first stage rocket to come into the water harder than planned.

What does this mean for the Starship going forward?

According to Ars Technica, Musk is hoping to land the vehicle back at the Boca Chica launch site and........

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