Weekly Space Report: Starship TF13 Imminent!

SCANALYZER The Happening World
, , , ,
1

Highlights:

  • NOTAMs for launch window starting Wednesday July 15.

  • Effectively a repeat of flight 12.

  • Tower 2 arm testing for catch

  • Booster 20 static fire. Some engines were from Booster 19. Skipped preliminaries and did a 25-second burn right out of the gate.

  • Pad 1 flame trench work update, trench lining on site.

  • Pad 1 tank farm reconfiguration, with another blast wall.

  • Booster header tank test article and B18.3 test article at Massey’s.

  • Ship 41 (future TF14) headed in for engine install.

  • TX Gigabay 7th and last level work in progress. (FL Gigabay is further along.)

  • Falcon 9: Starlink 10-50, Transporter-17 (81 payloads), Starlink 10-42, Starlink 17-48

  • Blue Origin demolition update. Launch bridge recovered in good shape, to re-use.

  • Long March 10B returns booster to recovery barge, arresting cable capture success.

  • Chinese mission to asteroid 2016 HO3, in quasi-orbit of earth. Sample return to be attempted.

  • Hyabusa 2 extended mission update

Schedule Note: Marcus is off next week, so next report will be on the 25th.

6 Likes
2

May be the most energy efficient capture mode.

May be best for slightly rough seas.

They appear to have good enough positional control to have done a leg landing if they wanted.

6 Likes
3

Four legs, with hydraulics, backup redundancies, etc – that has to add mass, which takes away directly from putting paying mass into orbit.

Maybe a leg landing will turn out to be an unnecessary burden? Remember Elon Musk’s guideline about rocket design – The best part is the part that’s not there.

4 Likes
4

One exception that Marcus got wrong.

From SpaceX:

The upcoming flight will aim to complete similar objectives targeted on the previous flight test, which debuted the Starship and Super Heavy V3 vehicles, while also carrying next-generation Starlink V3 satellites for the first time.

SpaceX just announced that they will be deploying V3 Starlink satellites for the first time during their 13th Starship test flight next week! Six of the satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starship’s heat shield and transmit imagery.

Summary of every… https://t.co/O8BaFyrufh pic.twitter.com/9ilTqtn9in

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 11, 2026
4 Likes
5

Scott Manley’s take on the Long March booster recovery provides some closer views of the catching mechanics.

Scott points out that the cable catching procedure not only saves the weight of landing legs and their appurtenances, it also provides a softer landing for the booster which means less stress and allows it to be lighter (i.e. larger payload). All good stuff.

However, this catch mechanism also requires a large expensive structure on the ocean. Trade-offs – the heart of engineering.

Scott Manley’s guess is that the dark smoke from the top of the booster as it came in for the catch was a fire involving hydraulic fluid.

5 Likes