SpaceX launched its 407-foot Starship megarocket from Texas for its 14th test flight on Monday morning, aiming to reach Earth orbit for the first time. The mission deployed 26 next-generation Starlink V3 internet satellites and marked a critical milestone for NASA’s Artemis lunar program.
SpaceX launched its massive Starship megarocket from its private pad in South Texas during a 75-minute window that opened at 8:15 a.m. EDT, or 7:15 a.m. local Texas time, on Monday, September 28. The Federal Aviation Administration had issued a license authorization for the flight operations on September 26. Standing 407 feet tall when fully stacked, the vehicle represents the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, combining the Super Heavy booster and the Ship upper-stage spacecraft.
First Orbital Attempt and the 10-Hour Flight Profile
While the program has completed 13 test flights since April 2023, every prior mission intentionally relied on suborbital trajectories that lasted no more than 65 minutes. Flight 14 changed that baseline by attempting to push the 171-foot upper-stage Ship into a sustained low Earth orbit, where it had to maintain a staggering speed of 17,500 mph to match Earth’s curvature.
Flight controllers monitored telemetry across thousands of data points covering engines, computers, navigation, and fuel systems as the spacecraft attempted to circle the planet six times. The first-stage Super Heavy booster separated about seven minutes after liftoff to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, while the upper-stage Ship continued its journey toward a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile nearly 10 hours later.
Deploying the Next-Generation Starlink V3 Megaconstellation
Reaching orbit served a dual purpose for SpaceX beyond proving out the spacecraft’s core flight systems. Once established on trajectory, the upper stage deployed 26 next-generation Starlink Version 3 internet satellites. These new units, produced at a company facility in Redmond, Washington, are larger and feature solar arrays that generate twice the power of earlier designs.
Three of the newly deployed satellites carried specialized cameras designed to monitor and capture video of the Ship’s heat shield tiles during the flight test. CNBC noted that SpaceX currently operates around 11,000 active satellites in low Earth orbit, anchoring a connectivity business that stood as the company’s largest and only profitable segment in the second quarter. Elon Musk stated on an August earnings call It’s not out of the question that at some point, Starlink will deliver a majority of the world’s internet, at least in countries where we’re allowed to operate, which is the vast majority of countries.
Furthermore, SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell discussed plans during the All-In Summit to utilize Starship vehicles to launch AI compute satellites
into orbit in 2027 to supercompute in space,
according to CNBC.
Hardware Recovery and Future Artemis Moon Missions
SpaceX did not attempt to recover either the Super Heavy booster or the Starship upper stage for this specific orbital test flight.
Successfully validating the orbital architecture remains vital for fulfilling multi-billion dollar contracts with NASA.