Shadowing Practice: Ship 40 Survived! SpaceX Prepares for an Ambitious Flight 14 | Starship Update - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Starship has delivered another spectacular performance as Flight 13 is now in the history books.
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The booster completed most of its objectives and the ship performed flawlessly.
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We're going to give you a full rundown of exactly what happened
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and even take a quick look into the not-so-distant future at Starship's 14th flight as
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that may be closer than some might think.
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As always, we have all that coming up and more on this week's Starship Update.
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Let's get right into business and the countdown here.
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After a small hold around the T-57 minute marker,
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Starship proceeded smoothly through propellant loading and right through the gate at T-60 seconds without any additional holds being called out.
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As the count came down to ignition, everybody was watching very closely.
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This is the point on the first attempt
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when Booster 20 ignited some of its engines before aborting at the last possible moment due to four Raptors failing to ignite.
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And we now know what caused the abort, specifically why those four Raptors failed to ignite.
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According to SpaceX, the issue stemmed from the oxygen turbo pumps on those four engines.
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Two additional engines had the same problem, but still managed to ignite.
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The turbo pumps are what feed propellants into the engine, one dedicated for liquid methane and the other for liquid oxygen.
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But thankfully, these four never ignited though.
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Otherwise, it would have been a very fuel-rich event, since the methane side was operating just fine.
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We also learned that Starship will only tolerate a maximum of two engines out before calling an abort on the pad.
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For version 1 and 2 boosters, that number was 3.
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So it's quite interesting to see how that's changed.
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Before restacking for the next attempt, Booster 20 ran a quick verification test on pad 2 with its six new engines,
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having those installed and swapped out for the faulty units in Mega Bay 1.
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It was essentially a sort of half spin prime.
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They spun up just the oxygen pumps on those engines as a sort of leak check.
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Because no methane was involved, though, they did not need the Detonation Suppression System, or the DSS.
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After SpaceX replaced six engines on Booster 20, conferring during their third attempt's stream, and rolled both vehicles out for stacking,
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Flight 13 was initially targeting Thursday, July 23rd.
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But that didn't last very long, though, as Thursday's attempt was called off fairly early due to poor weather conditions.
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Rather interestingly, one of the launch commit criteria this time around was being able to see the rocket from ground cameras
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so SpaceX could observe the heat shield through Max-Q.
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With heavy cloud cover, that just wasn't possible.
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But while we're on the subject of weather, SpaceX revealed something pretty interesting during the third attempt stream.
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Starship is allowed to launch through lightning.
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This comes after a Chinese Long March 3B rocket was struck by lightning on ascent and still completed its mission successfully.
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The fact that Starship is capable of flying through lightning seems like a relatively new development.
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Previous flights, like Flight 10, were scrubbed for anvil clouds and storm activity in the area, which we're actually kind of used to in Florida operations, but obviously this is not Florida.
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It's pretty strange to say this out loud, but lightning no longer seems to be a major concern.
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I mean, as long as the winds cooperate, we could realistically see a Starship launch through pretty adverse weather, which is pretty important if SpaceX wants to meet their higher launch cadences,
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as weather will not always be perfect, especially in Florida.
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Now back to the countdown.
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The deluge kicks in around T minus 10 seconds.
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All engines ignite simultaneously and Starship is released from pad two into the South Texas sky.
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After it punched through Max-Q, SpaceX gave us some stunning first-time views from the booster's engine bay, showing the Raptors firing in unison.
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I mean, how wild is it to be seeing both frost and glow from heat existing in such close proximity here?
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Like, that's just Raptor 3 in a nutshell for you.
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Next up was hot staging.
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Booster 20 shut down 28 of its 33 engines, leaving 5 still burning.
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Ship 40 then ignited its six engines in a staggered sequence, separating both vehicles.
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The ship continued toward orbit, while the booster, for the first time with a version 3 variant,
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successfully flipped straight upward as intended and relit all 33 engines for the boostback burn.
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The boostback looked mostly clean, but it ended a few seconds early.
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According to SpaceX's timeline, it was supposed to last 38 seconds, but only lasted for 26.
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The website later confirmed the early cutoff, though they didn't exactly share why.
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Unlike Booster 19 on Flight 12, Booster 20 did manage to light most of its engines for the landing burn.
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It started with 10 out of 13, then dropped to 8, and then an off nominal 5 before hitting the water pretty hard.
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Albeit not as hard as Booster 19, because that was basically supersonic.
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Unfortunately, that landing burn failure means we probably won't see a booster catch on Flight 14.
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But it does not rule out a catch entirely, but more on that later.
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Additionally, no successful booster catch on that flight means Starship's arrival to Florida could slip even further, unfortunately.
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Reusing a booster even once would give SpaceX some buffer in production, allowing them to send one to the Cape while continuing launches from Starbase with other units.
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Without that, the Florida timeline will likely get pushed deeper into the production queue.
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Hopefully, if Booster 21 lands as intended, then Booster 22 could be caught and either reused in Florida or make room for Booster 23 on the Space Coast.
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Now let's talk about ship.
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On the last flight, Ship 39 made it to Seaco, but about 40 seconds into its descent burn, one of the Raptor vacuum engines shut down unexpectedly.
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While that demonstrated engine out capability and still allowed for the ship to maintain its targeted trajectory, it meant that other in-fund objectives, like the in-space relight of a Raptor, had to be called off.
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Ship 40, by contrast, performed brilliantly.
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All engines stayed lit, and it maintained its targeted trajectory as planned, allowing the rest of the mission to proceed.
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Something new happened at engine shutdown, though.
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Unlike previous flights that reached this point, the vacuum and sea-level Raptors were all essentially cut at the same time.
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Not even a quarter second apart, even.
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On earlier flights, RVACs were always shut down several seconds before the sea-level engines, mainly for trajectory precision.
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Running every engine for the full duration is almost certainly for the same reason
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that they now light all 33 engines on booster for its boost back.
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It's simply more efficient.
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If you can run more engines for a longer period of time, then you have more power to fight against gravity.
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All of this is ultimately aimed at increasing Starship's full payload capacity.
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While a ton of that work comes from physical design upgrades, a big part of the challenge is also optimizing the software and current hardware behavior.
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When the time came, Ship 40 oriented the Pez dispenser facing pro-grade, or the direction facing the vehicle is traveling, and successfully deployed all 20 Starlink version 3 satellites.
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We know six of those carried cameras to image the heat shield, but we have yet to see any footage from them just yet.
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We're hoping SpaceX was successful with that and released its set footage soon.
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And honestly, I really have to hand it to SpaceX here.
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The views on this flight were incredible.
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And if you would like a third person view of Starship on your wall, check out our high quality Flight 13 metal prints,
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plus some celebratory merch, all available at shop.nastaspaceflight.com.
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We are incredibly proud of these, and we certainly hope you enjoy them.
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Because the ascent burn for ship was nominal, SpaceX was able to complete the in-space relight objective.
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This successful short burn gives Starship the best chance yet of reaching orbit and an on-site recovery very soon.
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We even have confirmation from Elon.
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Unless problems show up in the flight data, SpaceX will attempt a ship catch on flight 14.
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That's exciting.
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We've already seen three boosters caught so far.
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Pulling off a version 3 ship catch before a version 3
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booster catch would really highlight how far things have come since the version 2 era.
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Back then, at least early on, ship really struggled hard and had failed on its first three flights overall.
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And finally, we come to the last phases of flight.
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Re-entry, the belly flop, and landing.
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Ship 40 powered through peak heating and then began the return to launch site phase.
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Once again demonstrating excellent cross-range and control capability as it aimed for the splashdown area.
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And also the plasma on the cameras overall is just wickedly cool.
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Like that never gets old, genuinely.
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Shift 40 then simulated an alignment maneuver towards the tower with what was one of the fastest like pseudo-flatspans I've ever seen, especially for a vehicle of that size.
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After one hour and five minutes, Shift then lit its sea level engines one last time, flipped engines down, stepped down to two engines,
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then one, and landed softly in the waves of the Indian Ocean.
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Talk about picture perfect here, But here's the real cherry on top.
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Unlike every previous Starship Splashdown, Ship 40 did not explode when it tipped back over onto its side in the water.
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Even better, as in T-Plus 12 hours, the vehicle was still floating and still transmitting data, despite antennas being literally underwater.
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Plus, our friend Harry Stranger was able to task this satellite imagery, showing Ship 40 floating alongside support vessel Ghostralis 56 hours after Splashdown.
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I guess we can finally say Ship 40 put the ship into Starship.
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Okay, never mind.
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Bad joke.
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Moving on.
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The batteries are designed to last around 48 hours.
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And they'd have to, because that's about how long Starship is capable of staying in orbit before having to re-enter and land.
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We still don't know what is yet to come for Ship 40.
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SpaceX has tried to recover ships intact before, and failed when they exploded.
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It seems they had largely given up on hopes of recovering one after flight.
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But clearly they were not prepared for it to actually survive this time, because there it is, and look at how glorious it looks.
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Fingers crossed they managed to think up a plan for at
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least bringing parts of Ship 40 back to Starbase for very thorough analysis.
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And maybe even for display.
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I mean, there is a brand new rocket garden hopefully going up right over there.
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Flight 13 was certainly a great step forward, and one of the more memorable missions as of late.
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But it's going to get even more exciting real soon.
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I mean, while on the Space Coast, someone seems to have missed a memo about which pad Flight 13 was launching from,
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as the Starship tank farm at launch Complex 39A spooled up for testing big time.
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All jokes aside though, we are getting closer and closer to Starship's long-awaited debut from this very launch pad.
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It's only a matter of time before the first vehicles make their way over, hopefully in the next couple of months.
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Over at launch Complex 39A, besides the aforementioned tank farm testing, work has been mainly ongoing on the booster quick disconnects.
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SpaceX attached the middle section of the methane BQD hood before
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removing it to allow workers to access this area again and then reinstalled it again.
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The tower chopsticks have also been on the move, this time with some very large vertical travel for the very first time.
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They were raised slightly back in late June, likely just a functional test.
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But these latest movements are significantly larger, and it's about time too.
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Those chopsticks have been sitting on that tower for more than three years.
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As we've covered before, Pad 39A will support the very first Starship launches from Florida.
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It's encouraging to see more of the site coming online and being properly tested, from the tank farm all the way up to the chopsticks.
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At Space Launch Complex 37, the first of two launch towers has finally risen to its full height with the stacking of the ninth
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and final tower module.
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Seriously, I mean, I come to Starbase for two weeks and suddenly another tower is fully stacked in Florida.
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I mean, good grief.
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Even so, the site is still some time away from supporting its very first launch.
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There is a huge amount of work left inside the tower, plus digging and building the flame trench, plus the tank farm, and ASU, and so on.
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Although some hardware is already on site for those, so stay tuned.
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Coming back over to Starbase, SpaceX is already full steam ahead in preparing for the next flight, and for more in the future in the Megabase and in Star Factory.
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Both Flight 14 vehicles are already well into their testing campaigns.
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Booster 21 just completed cryogenic proof testing at Massey's, where it was loaded with liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen to verify structural integrity.
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Meanwhile, Ship 41 has begun to receive its six engines ahead of static fire testing.
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Once again with version 3, the boosters appear to be lagging behind ships in production and testing.
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And we can thank Booster 18 for that pattern.
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But still, it shouldn't delay Flight 14 too significantly.
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Booster 21 isn't the only possible bottleneck, though.
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If Flight 14 is truly going to orbit, SpaceX will also need some license modifications from the FAA.
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They're not major, but they matter.
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Right now, the license allows the ship to re-enter from orbit, but it only permits landing in the Indian Ocean, not at Starbase.
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Currently, the only vehicle authorized to land at the launch site is a booster.
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So that obviously needs some adjustments.
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Let us know in the comments what you think the path to Flight 14 looks like from here, and when you expect it to launch.
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So what would Flight 14 actually do if it reaches orbit?
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It's a great question.
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First, the booster would almost certainly need to demonstrate a soft landing in the Gulf before attempting a tower catch.
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The risk is still too high otherwise.
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So we can likely roll out a booster catch for this time.
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The ship would aim to deploy version 3 Starlink satellites once again, but into orbit for the very first time.
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These probably wouldn't join the operational constellation right away, but they would give SpaceX a lot of valuable on-orbit testing data.
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I mean, they did great last time, so hopefully more of the same this time.
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Ship 41 may then go to demonstrate staying in orbit for a long-ish period of time, a maximum of 48 hours according to SpaceX.
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It will then de-orbit by igniting a single sea level engine
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for what will hopefully be the first re-entry over to Starbase and the first catch of a ship at Tower 2.
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The production of even later flight vehicles is also proceeding nicely, as just before Flight 13, the aft section for Ship 42 was moved into Mega Bay 2,
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meaning that ship is now fully stacked.
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And into Mega Bay 1, SpaceX moved the methane landing tank and the booster's final aft section before the engine bay.
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Now, just after Flight 13, SpaceX rolled Booster 22's Falcon 9-sized transfer tube into Mega Bay 1,
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and won a Ship 42's aft flaps and both raceways into Mega Bay 2 for attaching to the ship.
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It shouldn't be too long now before Ship 42 is ready for crowd testing at Massey's, and hopefully, Booster 22 isn't too far behind either.
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As we all know, Starbase never sleeps, so the progress will always continue.
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Starship Flight 13 was certainly a great one, but it will surely pale in comparison to what lies ahead.
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Looking towards Flight 14 and onwards, go ahead and tell us, what will SpaceX actually perform on Flight 14?
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Booster catch despite the issues?
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Or actually push for a ship catch?
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There's only one way to find out.
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Let us all know in the comment section down below.
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I'm Max Evans for NSF, thank you so much for watching, and I'll catch y'all next time.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Ship 40 Survived! SpaceX Prepares for an Ambitious Flight 14”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: flight, ship, booster, engine, Spacex. This video has 183 sentences and 2700 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:15. The speaker talks fast, about 190 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| booster noun | /ˈbustɚ/ | Something that boosts. |
| orbit noun | /ˈɔɹ.bɪt/ | An elliptical movement of an object about a celestial object or Lagrange point, especially a periodic elliptical revolution. |
| ignite verb | /ɪɡˈnaɪt/ | To set fire to (something), to light (something) |
| methane noun | /ˈmiːθeɪn/ | The simplest aliphatic hydrocarbon, CH₄, being a constituent of natural gas, and one of the most abundant greenhouse gases. |
| stack noun | /stæk/ | A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch. |
| demonstrate verb | /ˈdɛm.ənˌstɹeɪt/ | To show how to use (something). |
| splashdown noun | The act of landing in water, as by a space capsule or rollercoaster. | |
| trajectory noun | /tɹəˈd͡ʒɛktəɹi/ | The path an object takes as it moves. |
| proceed verb | /pɹəˈsid/ | To move, pass, or go forward or onward; to advance; to carry on. |
| abort verb | /əˈbɔɹt/ | To miscarry; to bring forth (non-living) offspring prematurely. |
| ascent noun | /əˈsɛnt/ | The act of ascending; a motion upwards. |
| relight verb | To light or kindle anew. | |
| nominal adjective | /ˈnɒm.ɪ.nl̩/ | Of, resembling, relating to, or consisting of a name or names. |
| countdown noun | /ˈkaʊntˌdaʊn/ | A count backward in fixed units to the time of some event, especially the launch of a space vehicle. |
| deploy verb | /dɪˈplɔɪ/ | To prepare and arrange (originally military unit or units, i.e., to array troops) for use. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| call off verb | To recall; to cancel or call a halt to. | |
| shut down verb | To close, terminate, or end; to stop operating, either permanently or temporarily. | |
| call out verb | To specify, especially in detail. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has delivered · We've already seen · have come |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being called · was involved · was called |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 21 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, didn't, isn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: methane /ˈmiːθeɪn/, authorize /ˈɔθəɹaɪz/, smoothly /ˈsmuːðli/, thorough /ˈθʌɹoʊ/, ninth /naɪnθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ignition /ɪɡˈnɪʃən/, verification /ˌvɛ.ɹə.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, modification /ˌmɑdɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, precision /pɹɪˈsɪʒ.ən/, confirmation /ˌkɑn.fəɹˈmeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: trajectory /tɹəˈd͡ʒɛktəɹi/, capability /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/, criterion /kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ən/, verification /ˌvɛ.ɹə.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, unexpectedly /ʌnɪkˈspɛktɪdli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like booster, orbit, ignite.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.