{"id":572118,"date":"2026-08-02T17:55:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/572118\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T17:55:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T17:55:14","slug":"was-starship-launch-13-a-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/572118\/","title":{"rendered":"Was Starship Launch 13 A Success?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Press enter or click to view image in full size<img alt=\"\" class=\"cs gb gc c\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" loading=\"eager\" role=\"presentation\"\/>Photo by <a class=\"bx gh\" href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@nssaremi?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">nader saremi<\/a> on <a class=\"bx gh\" href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Unsplash<\/a>It\u2019s complicated. Or is it?<a rel=\"noopener follow nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/wlockett.medium.com\/?source=post_page---byline--7b2cc72760b9---------------------------------------\" data-discover=\"true\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Will Lockett\" class=\"e bs ee ef eg ei\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1*V0qWMQ8V5_NaF9yUoHAdyg.jpeg\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\" loading=\"lazy\" data-testid=\"authorPhoto\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"e932\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mp mq gw mr b hp ms mt mu hs mv mw mx my mz na nb nc nd ne nf ng nh ni nj nk fn cv\">It has been over a decade since Elon announced Starship and three years since its first test launch, but this colossal rocket has yet to show any evidence that it can actually work as a space launch vehicle, let alone revolutionise this tiny niche industry. So, was 13 SpaceX\u2019s lucky number? Did their 13th test flight actually move the needle forward on this quagmire of a project? From one very narrow perspective, yes, it did. But in real terms, this flight hasn\u2019t got SpaceX any closer to the mythical fully reusable, cheap-to-launch, 100-ton-to-LEO (Low Earth Orbit) rocket Musk promised us a decade ago. It\u2019s almost like this guy has proven himself to be a narcissistic pathological liar, and we should know better than to trust anything that falls out of his gaping maw.<\/p>\n<p>The Good<\/p>\n<p id=\"b527\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mp mq gw mr b hp oe mt mu hs of mw mx my og na nb nc oh ne nf ng oi ni nj nk fn cv\">However, I want to separate the authoritarian oligarch from the work, because the actual engineers at SpaceX, the ones tasked with making Musk\u2019s idiotic ideas a reality, pulled off a miracle here, and they deserve praise. So, what went well?<\/p>\n<p id=\"d64c\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph mp mq gw mr b hp ms mt mu hs mv mw mx my mz na nb nc nd ne nf ng nh ni nj nk fn cv\">Well, this flight successfully deployed 20 functional Starlink V3 satellites, which marks the first time its payload wasn\u2019t just a dummy mass. That factor matters because V3 is critical to Starlink\u2019s future, and Starlink is by far SpaceX\u2019s biggest\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Press enter or click to view image in full sizePhoto by nader saremi on UnsplashIt\u2019s complicated. Or is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-572118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}