What happened on Starship flight 14?
The first Starship to reach orbit and release working satellites, on 28 September 2026
Starship flight 14 was the fourteenth launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket and its first operational flight. It lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on 28 September 2026 and became the first Starship to enter orbit, where it released 26 working Starlink V3 satellites. Engine problems on the way up led SpaceX to cut the planned ten-hour mission short: the ship came down after about three hours, splashing down in the Pacific north of Hawaii.
For thirteen flights, every full-scale Starship had followed a suborbital arc, climbing to the edge of space and falling back without completing an orbit. Flight 14 was meant to change that, and it did, despite losing an engine on each stage on the way up.
- Launched
- 28 September 2026, 12:48:59 UTC
- From
- Starbase, Texas
- Vehicle
- Super Heavy booster and Ship 41
- Payload
- 26 Starlink V3 satellites
- Reached orbit
- Yes, the first Starship to do so
- Flight time
- About 3 hours 8 minutes (nearly 10 hours planned)
- Ship landing
- Controlled splashdown in the Pacific, north of Hawaii
- Booster landing
- Controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico
What was Starship flight 14?
It was the fourteenth launch of the complete Starship system, the giant two-stage rocket made of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft on top, and the first flight SpaceX treated as operational rather than a test. All thirteen earlier full-scale flights since integrated testing began in April 2023 had been suborbital. Flight 14 was planned as the first to reach low Earth orbit and the first to put operational satellites there.
The plan was ambitious: an orbital-insertion burn about 25 minutes after liftoff, deployment of 26 Starlink V3 satellites, then about six orbits over a flight of nearly ten hours before Ship 41 came down over the Pacific west of Chile.
Did Starship reach orbit?
Yes, although it nearly didn’t. During the ship’s climb, one of its three Raptor Vacuum engines, the engines designed to work in the vacuum of space, shut down early. SpaceX first announced that the ship would not commit to orbit, then reversed the decision after assessing its condition.
About 25 minutes after liftoff, Ship 41 fired a single Raptor engine for a short orbital-insertion burn and entered orbit, the first time a Starship spacecraft had done so.
What did it carry?
Twenty-six operational Starlink V3 satellites, each designed to provide substantially more network capacity than the earlier V2 generation. Deployment began about 34 minutes after liftoff and took about half an hour, and all 26 were released into orbit. Three of them carried extra cameras to photograph Ship 41’s heat shield while it was in orbit.
It was not the first time Starship had released working Starlinks: on flight 13, on 24 July 2026, it deployed 20 on a suborbital path. Flight 14 was the first to leave them in orbit, a real delivery rather than a demonstration with dummy payloads.
Why was the flight cut short?
Because of the engine problem during ascent. Rather than continue with the planned multi-orbit mission, SpaceX shortened the flight. Ship 41 fired its engines for an early deorbit burn about two hours and 12 minutes after launch and reentered the atmosphere over the Pacific.
On the way down it turned from horizontal flight to a vertical position and fired its landing burn, making a controlled splashdown north of Hawaii about three hours and eight minutes after launch. Then it tipped onto its side and the propellant left in its tanks caught fire. SpaceX had never planned to recover it from the ocean.
What happened to the Super Heavy booster?
The first stage had its own engine trouble: one of its 33 Raptor engines shut down early during the climb. It carried on regardless, separated from Ship 41 in a “hot-staging” manoeuvre, in which the ship lights its engines before the stages part, then flew its boostback and landing sequence and made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff.
Why does flight 14 matter?
It marks Starship’s move from suborbital testing to orbital operations. In a single mission it demonstrated getting into orbit, staying there and delivering real payloads, and it set records for the program, including its longest flight so far. The Times described it as Starship’s transition from a suborbital test vehicle towards an operational spacecraft.
Reaching orbit also lets SpaceX test the ship for longer and in the conditions it was built for. After the insertion burn, SpaceX said the program could now begin the next phase of making Starship “fully and rapidly reusable”, with both the booster and the ship recovered and flown again, which is central to its promise of cheaper, quicker launches. Starship was designed to carry far more than Falcon 9, still SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, and to launch future generations of Starlink satellites.
How did Starship get here?
SpaceX builds Starship iteratively: it flies full-scale vehicles in quick succession and feeds what it learns, including from failures, into the next one. Since the first integrated flight in April 2023, the program had seen successful demonstrations, partial successes and lost vehicles as it expanded what the rocket could do. Changes to engines, structures, the heat shield, flight software and procedures are all tested in flight rather than only on the ground.
What comes next for Starship?
In the nearer term, the Moon. In 2021 NASA chose SpaceX to develop a version of Starship as a lunar lander for the Artemis program. The Starship Human Landing System is meant to carry astronauts between NASA’s Orion spacecraft in lunar orbit and the surface, which will require long stays in space, docking, refuelling in orbit, and landing and taking off from the Moon. Blue Origin is developing a competing lander, Blue Moon, under its own NASA contract.
The longer goal is Mars. Elon Musk first outlined a fully reusable system to carry large numbers of people and cargo to Mars in 2012, and has described a permanent human presence there as the program’s long-term aim.
Timeline
- 2012Elon Musk outlines a fully reusable system to carry people and cargo to Mars.
- 2021NASA selects a Starship variant as an Artemis lunar lander.
- 20 Apr 2023Starship’s first integrated flight test.
- 24 Jul 2026Flight 13 deploys 20 Starlink satellites on a suborbital path.
- 28 Sep 2026, 12:48 UTCFlight 14 lifts off from Starbase, Texas.
- +7 minSuper Heavy splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico.
- +25 minShip 41 fires one engine and enters orbit.
- +34 minDeployment of 26 Starlink V3 satellites begins.
- +2 h 12 minEarly deorbit burn.
- +3 h 8 minShip 41 splashes down in the Pacific north of Hawaii.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Starship flight 14, background, mission profile, significance and long-term objectives.
- Wikipedia: Starship flight test 13, the previous flight.
- Wikipedia: Starship flight test 1, the first integrated flight.
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