Will the massive SpaceX Starship mission happen without a hitch? Remember, it was scrubbed on 7/16!

SpaceX successfully launched Starship Flight 13 on July 24, more than a week after an earlier attempt was scrubbed on July 16 when four Raptor engines failed to meet startup parameters ahead of liftoff. The July 24 flight became the first Starship mission to deploy operational payloads, releasing 20 Starlink satellites into a suborbital trajectory that made contact with ground stations.

The Super Heavy booster and upper-stage Ship both flew their planned profiles, including a controlled splashdown and an in-space engine relight test, key milestones SpaceX needed to verify ahead of an eventual orbital flight. The heat shield performed notably better than in earlier test flights, a persistent trouble spot for the Starship program.

A weather delay pushed the launch from July 23 to July 24, but once underway the flight proceeded through its major test objectives without the kind of failure that scrubbed the July 16 attempt.

Only 42% of predictors expected the mission to go off without a hitch, so the community underestimated SpaceX's ability to recover from the earlier scrub and execute a clean flight.