SpaceX delays Starship again to replace two Raptor engines
What happened
SpaceX announced (Sunday Jul 19, ~22:28 UTC) that Starship Flight 13 — carrying the first 20 V3-generation Starlink satellites and the first laser-mesh-to-ground test — is now targeted for Thursday Jul 23, ~90-min window opening 22:45 UTC, having previously re-targeted Monday Jul 20 22:45 UTC after the Jul 16 T-0 pad abort (4 of 33 Super Heavy Raptors failed to ignite). SpaceX says it "modified Starship's propulsion system" and is replacing two Raptor 3 engines on the booster. A direct live-verification pass this cycle resolved a conflict between two research passes (one found the Jul 20 date still standing, unaware of the Sunday update; the other flagged the Jul 23 slip) — the Jul 23 date is the current, SpaceX-confirmed target as of this brief.
Read-across for SES
Starlink V3's capacity jump (higher per-satellite throughput, laser-mesh-to-ground) is the more important medium-term threat to SES's GEO/HTS and O3b mPOWER competitive position than any single slip — but a 2nd consecutive scrub on the same root-cause family (Raptor 3 ignition reliability) is a data point on launch-cadence risk for the whole Starlink V3/Starship-dependent buildout, feeding the standing "Starship as single biggest gatekeeper for SpaceX future" read (reader-flagged 07-17). Per Outcome-verification doctrine, still not flight-proven — next cycle should resolve the outcome.
As the brief filed it
[AGE: 6h] SpaceX pushes Starship Flight 13 (first Starlink V3 satellite deployment attempt) from Mon Jul 20 to Thu Jul 23 — 2nd slip since the Jul 16 pad-abort; two Raptor 3 engines being replaced, SpaceX says propulsion system modified.