SpaceX Sends Starship to Orbit With 26 Starlink V3 Satellites

SpaceX sends Starship to orbit for the first time on its 14th test flight, a breakthrough achieved despite the loss of one upper stage engine about two and a half minutes after launch. The mission is also testing changes to the booster and gathering information on Starship’s heat shield.

SpaceX sends Starship to orbit for the first time

The 40 story rocket lifted off at 7:48 a.m. CT from SpaceX’s Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas. Its Super Heavy booster ignited all 33 engines, carrying Starship over the Gulf of Mexico before the two stages separated.

One of Starship’s six engines then failed. SpaceX’s live broadcast initially said the vehicle would fall short of orbit, but spokesperson Dan Huot revised that assessment about 22 minutes into the flight. Engineers confirmed the remaining engines could provide enough thrust for the spacecraft to reach orbital velocity, roughly 17,500 miles per hour.

In plain terms, reaching that speed means Starship can keep falling around Earth instead of quickly dropping back toward the ground. Its earlier 13 flights, conducted since 2023, stayed below orbit. The milestone had been a goal since 2022, during a development effort that has cost SpaceX more than $15 billion.

What the test flight is measuring

The mission is scheduled to complete six orbits over 10 hours before Starship splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off Chile. It deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Three Starlink satellites fitted with cameras are also part of the flight, with the cameras intended to capture how the heat shield performs during reentry.

The booster is taking a different route home. Instead of attempting its usual catch by the launch tower, Super Heavy is simulating a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX is using the test to assess software and hardware changes intended for later flights.

Frequent launches face a power supply hurdle

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has described an ambition to fly Starship “hundreds or thousands” of times a year. Meeting that pace would require infrastructure and equipment on a much larger scale. Musk said this month that gas turbines, which can provide power for industrial operations, are sold out through 2030.

SpaceX is building a factory in Bastrop, Texas, to make turbine blades itself. The company says in house production could shorten delivery times by as much as 18 months. A planned $100 billion Starbase expansion in Louisiana, with dozens of launch pads targeted by 2029, would add to the site’s demand for power.

NASA also intends to use Starship as the human landing system for Artemis III. A test docking with the Orion crew capsule is planned before the mission, which is currently scheduled for late next year, alongside a competing lander from Blue Origin.

Can Starship turn an orbital milestone into routine flights?

Reaching orbit is a major technical step, but it does not establish that Starship can complete repeated, reliable flights or safely handle reentry. The planned Pacific splashdown and heat shield observations will provide useful evidence. How quickly the spacecraft can fly again will depend on those results, as well as the power and production capacity SpaceX can build.