SpaceX lights all 6 Starship Raptors for 60 seconds, pushing toward Flight 13

SpaceX just ran a full-minute engine test with all six Raptor engines on Starship’s upper stage, Ship 40. The company posted video on X on Thursday, July 2, showing multiple angles of the ignition sequence and all six engines firing, designed to simulate flight-like conditions on the vehicle.

This matters because Ship 40 is slated to support Starship’s 13th test flight of a fully stacked Starship, expected within the next month or so. In other words, this is not a random hardware check. It is a step in the shortest path between “we can light engines” and “we can attempt the next full mission profile,” including the kind of in-space relight that future flight tests will lean on.

If you are tracking Starship as an operating system for repeatable rockets, the testing rhythm is the story. SpaceX says Ship 40 previously completed its first-ever static fire last week by lighting a single Raptor for about 15 seconds. This more recent test flips the switch in both quantity and duration, moving from one engine and a brief burn to all six Raptors firing for a full minute. That duration is the kind of detail that helps validate plumbing, ignition reliability, and steady-state behavior, not just momentary “it turned on” success.

The configuration also reinforces what SpaceX is building into Starship’s engine architecture. Ship is equipped with three sea-level and three vacuum-optimized Raptors. In the video, the engine firing sequence runs across all six, which is effectively a rehearsal for the mixed environment Starship faces when it climbs out of denser air and transitions toward space. For decision-makers watching this program, it is a reminder that Starship is not just one launch, it is a system meant to land and be reused, with engine performance and operational reliability doing most of the heavy lifting.

Ship 40 will take part in the second “Version 3” (V3) Starship launch. SpaceX debuted the updated V3 rocket prototype during a test flight on May 22. That mission went smoothly “for the most part,” but it was not a complete success. The Super Heavy booster failed to maneuver itself to a soft ocean splashdown as planned, which shapes what Flight 13 is likely to attempt and what kinds of failure modes engineers will be watching.

Because of that, Flight 13 will likely mirror much of the flight path and mission objectives as Flight 12. The source also notes that the upcoming test includes relighting one of Ship’s Raptor engines in space. That is the operational milestone at the heart of why companies care about engine testing. A flight can only be repeated, scaled, and insured against real-world risk if key events like ignition and relight work on schedule in the relevant conditions, not just on the ground.

Looking ahead, the next steps after this upper-stage static fire are about the other half of the stack. The source says the mission’s Super Heavy booster will need to be rolled to the pad at Starbase for engine tests. Super Heavy has 33 Raptor engines at its business end, producing nearly 20 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. This is where schedule realism meets technical reality. Static-fire success can accelerate the calendar, while any engine or control-system issues can force delays, especially when you are juggling both a new rocket iteration (V3) and lessons learned from the previous attempt.

And if you zoom out from test flights to what Starship is trying to become, the stakes get bigger fast. SpaceX describes Starship as a super-heavy lift rocket designed for seamless landing and reuse. The V3 version is listed as 408 feet (124.4 meters) tall, about 5 feet (1.5 m) taller than V2, and is described as the biggest, most powerful rocket ever to fly. Once development is complete and the vehicle is fully operational, SpaceX says it has plans including expansion of its Starlink satellite-internet network in low Earth orbit, landing NASA astronauts on the moon as part of the Artemis program, and delivering heavier payloads to orbit than any other rocket in history.

Finally, the reason this engine-test video deserves attention from executives and boards is that it compresses uncertainty. SpaceX is effectively converting test data into confidence before Flight 13. The source says, if Super Heavy’s static fire tests go smoothly, Flight 13 could happen as early as August. For anyone funding or partnering in the broader space infrastructure ecosystem, timing is everything: launch windows affect deployment plans, downstream customers, government timelines, and the credibility that keeps capital and talent moving toward the next phase.