SpaceX Fires All Six Raptor Engines on Starship Ship 40 in 60-Second Static Fire Before Flight 13

Imagine standing a few miles from a rocket the size of a 20-storey building while six methane-fuelled engines roar at full power for a full minute. That is, in essence, what SpaceX engineers witnessed at Starbase in Texas this week — and it is the kind of test that tells them whether their vehicle is ready to fly.

SpaceX announced the milestone in a post on X from the official @SpaceX account, confirming that Starship Ship 40 had completed a 60-second static fire of all six Raptor engines at its Starbase facility. The test, which is longer than the brief few-second firings typically used to check engine health, was designed to simulate the kind of sustained burn the vehicle would perform during an actual flight.

What Actually Happened at Starbase

A static fire is exactly what it sounds like: the engines ignite and run at full power, but the rocket stays bolted to the ground. It lets engineers check everything from how the engines behave under sustained load to how heat moves through the vehicle’s structure, all without the risk of a full flight.

This was not Ship 40’s first test. Before the six-engine firing, the vehicle had already gone through cryogenic proof testing — where the propellant tanks are filled with super-cold liquid to check for leaks and structural integrity — and a single-engine static fire. The 60-second, all-six-engines run is the most demanding ground test in that sequence, and completing it clears a significant hurdle on the path to launch.

Video footage shared by independent observers and spaceflight tracking accounts on social media corroborated SpaceX’s announcement, showing the full-duration burn at Starbase.

What Flight 13 Is Meant to Achieve

Starship Flight 13 is currently targeted for July 2026, according to specialist launch-tracking services, though that date is indicative and could shift depending on technical readiness and regulatory sign-off from the US Federal Aviation Administration.

The mission is understood by spaceflight commentators to be another iterative test rather than the programme’s first fully operational orbital flight. Earlier Starship flights have progressively tackled harder challenges — controlled re-entry, splashdown, and booster recovery — and Flight 13 looks set to build on those results, refining flight performance and recovery procedures further.

Ship 40 will fly alongside Super Heavy Booster 20, which carries 33 Raptor engines and has been undergoing its own cryogenic proof tests and engine installation at Starbase. Together, the two vehicles make up the full Starship launch system — the upper stage (Ship) sitting atop the massive booster for launch, then separating to continue into space independently.

How Starship Fits Into the Bigger Picture

SpaceX built Starship to be fully reusable, which is the key word. Falcon 9 — the rocket that currently launches most of SpaceX’s missions — can recover and re-fly its first stage, but the upper stage is discarded after every launch. Starship is designed so that both stages come back and fly again, which, if it works reliably, could sharply reduce the cost of getting things into orbit.

The system is intended for heavy-lift missions, high-volume satellite deployment, deep-space exploration, and eventually — in SpaceX’s long-term plans — crewed missions to Mars. NASA has also contracted SpaceX to use a modified Starship as a lunar lander for its Artemis programme.

But the road to routine commercial service is still long. Space industry analysts generally see the 60-second Raptor burn as a positive sign of engine reliability under sustained load. And yet, as those same analysts point out, Starship still faces technical, regulatory, and operational challenges before it becomes a workhorse of the launch industry. Not every test goes to plan, and the programme’s history includes some spectacular failures alongside its genuine breakthroughs.

There are also ongoing concerns from environmental advocates and some communities near Starbase about noise, safety, and the environmental impact of repeated high-power tests and launches from the Texas site. Those questions have not gone away, and they remain part of the broader conversation around how the programme is regulated and managed.

What This Means for Kent Residents

There’s no direct effect on Kent from a rocket test in Texas, but the broader story matters for anyone here with an interest in careers or education in the space sector. The UK’s growing involvement in satellite operations and commercial launch services means that developments in heavy-lift capability — like Starship — will eventually shape the missions that British companies and institutions are part of. For students at Kent colleges and sixth forms considering engineering, physics, or computing, the Starship programme offers a real-world example of iterative testing, propulsion engineering, and systems design that teachers and STEM outreach groups can bring into the classroom. Local astronomy societies and science centres may also find Flight 13 a good hook for public engagement events as the launch window approaches next summer.