ISS cargo run, Artemis II says thank you to Europe, and the Starship pause

Today's Launches

Here's what we have on the schedule this week, sourced from RocketLaunch.Live:

Sources: RocketLaunch.Live (confirmed launches); Spaceflight Now (Jul 16 SDA mission). Specific mission details for some mid-week Starlink missions remain TBD pending official confirmation from SpaceX.

---

What Happened

The Starship that didn't fly (but told us something useful)

On July 16, SpaceX reached ignition for Starship Flight 13 at 5:45 PM CDT (6:45 PM EDT) from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. Then four engines on the Super Heavy booster didn't fire as planned. The abort fired automatically, and the vehicle stayed on the pad. That's the best possible version of a bad outcome.

The mission was carrying 20 Starlink Version 3 satellites as a suborbital test — they were never going to orbit, just ride Starship up and come back down about 20 minutes later after linking briefly to the live Starlink constellation. Both Booster 20 and Ship 40 were first-flight hardware. SpaceX had explicitly written off recovery for this mission. In that context, the abort looks less like a crisis and more like a $50-million checkpoint.

Musk's post on X was characteristically terse: "Some of the engines didn't start, triggering an automatic launch abort. Next launch attempt hopefully in a few days." That timing has now slipped — we're four days past that estimate — but the engineering team appears to be working methodically rather than rushing a fix that could make things worse.

One thing worth flagging for the record: Flight 13 was the Starship program's second launch attempt of 2026, following Flight 12 in May. The May mission had its own issue — a Raptor engine on the upper stage went offline less than a minute after stage separation, and five of the 33 sea-level engines on the booster failed to relight, causing a premature loss of the booster. SpaceX acknowledged hardware and operational modifications between the two flights. The fact that the abort system worked as designed on Flight 13 is meaningful. The vehicle has now survived two anomaly scenarios the way it was supposed to.

The bigger question — when does Starship go orbital? — is still open. President and COO Gwynne Shotwell told CNBC in June that orbital attempt could come as soon as Flight 14, depending on how Flight 13 went. We now know how Flight 13 went. That makes Flight 14 worth watching.

Source: Spaceflight Now — Starship Flight 13 abort

Same day, different rocket: SDA's constellation keeps building

While the Starship sat on its pad, a Falcon 9 cleared the pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 1:32 PM PDT (4:32 PM EDT) carrying 21 communications satellites for the Space Development Agency's Tranche 1 Transport Layer. Deployment was confirmed by SDA at 8 PM EDT.

This was SDA's third operational launch for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. The satellites — built by York Space Systems — are part of a communications layer that will connect U.S. military assets and allied forces. The full constellation design includes 126 transport layer satellites, 28 tracking layer satellites, and 4 missile defense demonstration satellites, for a total of 154 operational spacecraft. This launch added 21 more to that count.

The booster, B1103, landed on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. That's the 211th landing on that vessel and SpaceX's 639th booster landing overall. At this point, booster landings are routine enough that SpaceX barely comments on them. That's a sign of how far the reusability program has come.

Source: Spaceflight Now — SDA T1TL-E mission

Artemis II says thank you, European style

On July 14, the four Artemis II astronauts — NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, plus CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen — spent the day at ESA's European Space Research and Technical Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands. The visit was a post-flight thank-you tour to the team that built the European Service Module, which provided power, propulsion, thermal control, and life support for the Orion spacecraft during their 10-day, million-kilometer trip around the Moon.

Howard Hu, NASA's Orion Program Manager, presented ESA with a Program Award and certificates acknowledging the European contribution to the mission. ESA Director of Human and Robotic Exploration Daniel Neuenschwander was there in person; Director General Josef Aschbacher joined remotely. The ambassadors of both the U.S. and Canada to the Netherlands attended in person.

The Artemis II mission launched April 1, 2026 and returned April 11 — the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972. It worked as designed, which is worth saying plainly. ESA's European Service Module performed every function without incident across more than a million kilometers of deep space.

The thank-you tour isn't ceremonial — it matters for NASA's Artemis III plans. ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano was announced as the ESA pilot for Artemis III in June 2026, making him the first European to fly an Artemis mission. The third European Service Module has already been delivered to Kennedy Space Center and is being integrated with the Orion crew module. ESA's role isn't a subcontractor footnote — it's structural to the mission architecture.

Source: ESA — Artemis II astronauts visit ESA

---

This Week's Watch

Today, July 20 — Starlink 17-39: Falcon 9, approximately 2:36 PM EDT, Florida launch site. Confirm via Spaceflight Now live coverage closer to the window.

Week of July 21–25 — Starship Flight 13 retry: Musk said "a few days" on July 16. Four days have passed. A retry this week would be consistent with how SpaceX has managed previous anomaly investigations. Watch SpaceX's X account and Spaceflight Now for updates.

August 12, 2026 — Total solar eclipse: This one's still three-plus weeks out, but worth putting on your calendar now. A total solar eclipse will cross Greenland, Iceland, Spain, and Portugal on August 12. The ESA has been running public awareness content on it. If you're in the path of totality or planning travel, August hotel prices in Spain will tell you what you need to know about demand.

Ongoing — ISS operations: The station is in its mature operational phase with crew rotating on standard 6-month schedules. No specific crewed launch is publicly confirmed for this week, but Cygnus cargo missions and crew rotations continue on their own timetables. NASA's ISS upcoming events page is the source to watch.

---

The Sky This Week

The Moon reaches first quarter on Tuesday, July 21 — it will be high and bright at sunset and visible until around midnight, making it a good early-evening observation target. For ISS passes, check spotthestation.nasa.gov for your specific city and ZIP code; the site updates weekly with exact pass times for your location. ISS passes are bright — usually magnitude -2 to -3.8, brighter than any star.

For eclipse-chasing prep, a good 8-inch or larger telescope from a stable mount will serve you well whether you're tracking lunar detail or positioning for August's solar event. The Celestron NexStar 8SE with its computerized GoTo mount is a solid option for this kind of planning — it's been a reference instrument in the amateur astronomy community for years and holds its value if your interests evolve.

---

All times Eastern. Launch times sourced from RocketLaunch.Live and Spaceflight Now at time of writing. Specific mission parameters for some mid-week launches remain pending official SpaceX confirmation. Bookmark spaceorbitals.com/newsletters/ for the daily tracker, published every weekday morning.