SpaceX's Starship reaches orbit on Flight 14 and deploys 26 Starlink V3 satellites

Liftoff from Starbase and the long road to orbit

SpaceX launched its Starship-Super Heavy megarocket from Starbase in Cameron County, Texas, on Sept. 28, 2026, the vehicle's 14th integrated test flight and the first to attempt an orbital trajectory. Liftoff occurred at 8:48 a.m. ET (7:48 a.m. local Texas time), about 33 minutes into the mission's 75-minute launch window. The 124-meter-tall (407-foot) vehicle had flown 13 prior test flights, all intentionally limited to suborbital paths, dating back to 2023; reaching orbit was a benchmark Elon Musk had publicly projected for 2022. The mission carried Starship's first orbital payload, a batch of 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites destined for operational use rather than re-entry.

Mid-flight drama over a Starship engine shutdown

Roughly a minute after liftoff, one of the six Raptor engines on the Starship upper stage shut down prematurely, prompting SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot to announce on the company's live stream that the craft "would be unable to reach orbit" and that "the team has made the call not to commit to orbit." Engineers reversed the decision minutes later, determining that the remaining engines could still perform the orbital insertion burn. About 25 minutes after liftoff, Ship 41 reignited a single Raptor to raise and circularize its trajectory, and mission control confirmed, "Starship is orbital," as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X, "First orbital flight of Starship successful!" SpaceX's June IPO valued the company at $2 trillion as of Sept. 25's close, and investors watched the engine glitch closely; SpaceX shares were down about 1% on Monday despite being up nearly 9% from the IPO price.

Booster splashdown and Starlink deployment

The Super Heavy booster, tail number B21, separated and returned to the Gulf of Mexico for a controlled splashdown about seven minutes after liftoff, though several of its engines stopped working during descent. Starship, tail number S41, then began deploying its payload of 26 Starlink V3 satellites about 34 minutes into the mission, releasing them one by one over roughly 30 minutes at an altitude of approximately 269 kilometers (161 miles). Musk confirmed on X that "all 26 Starlink V3 operational satellites deployed and operating nominally." Three of the satellites carried extra imaging capabilities intended to capture video of the ship's heat-shield tiles.

Truncated mission and Pacific re-entry

Originally planned as a nearly 10-hour flight encompassing six Earth orbits with a splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile, the mission was cut to about three hours as SpaceX used its first scheduled checkpoint to bring the vehicle home early. Starship executed a deorbit burn before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean, north of Hawaii, in a vertical, nose-up orientation, marking SpaceX's longest Starship flight to date despite the shortened profile. No recovery of either stage was attempted, though SpaceX has said it may try to catch the next Starship upper stage during Flight 15.

Stakes for SpaceX, Starlink and NASA

Flight 14 was the third Starship launch to use Version 3 of the vehicle, an iteration SpaceX says is capable of deploying satellites and eventually reaching the moon and Mars. Musk has said he ultimately envisions "hundreds or thousands of Starship missions a year," and SpaceX plans to begin routine Starship operations later in 2026, eventually launching up to 60 Starlink V3 satellites per mission. Starship is also central to NASA's Artemis lunar program, with the rocket intended to carry future crew and cargo missions to the moon. Investors had previously erased roughly $100 billion from SpaceX's market value after Flight 13 was aborted at the last second in July, underscoring how much of the company's $2 trillion valuation hinges on Starship's reliability.