Bertha Forces Delay of Starship's Flight 13

SpaceX has postponed the do-over for its 13th Starship test flight. The towering rocket had been slated to lift off Thursday evening from the company's Starbase site in South Texas, but the launch was called off due to Tropical Storm Bertha, which made landfall in Texas Thursday afternoon, reports the San Antonio Express-News. SpaceX plans to try again on Friday, with a 90-minute launch window opening at 6:45pm Eastern and a livestream here.

• "A key objective for the flight test is to get clear imagery from the ground of Starship's heatshield as it flies at a higher dynamic pressure during ascent, which won't be possible with today's weather conditions," SpaceX said on X. "Visibility is forecast to be ideal for a Friday attempt."

The mission will mark the second Starship flight of 2026. It follows a last-second abort on July 16, when some of its engines failed to ignite. SpaceX has swapped out two of Starship's Raptor engines and conducted additional testing on the ground, Gizmodo reports. In Flight 13, the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage—together the largest rocket ever flown—will largely repeat May's Flight 12 profile, aiming for controlled splashdowns in the Gulf of Mexico and the Indian Ocean, rather than attempting SpaceX's signature "chopstick" tower catch, Space.com reports.

This outing adds a key twist: deployment of 20 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites on a suborbital path, designed to test higher-capacity broadband hardware and laser links before they intentionally burn up. Six satellites will carry cameras to inspect Starship's heat shield, while new load-sensing tiles will measure stress as the vehicle flies a more demanding ascent profile.

• "The booster's primary test objective will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America," SpaceX wrote in a mission description, using the Trump administration's preferred term for the gulf. "There have been several modifications to hardware and software to address issues seen on the previous flight."