SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit for the first time on 28 September 2026. Flight 14 lifted off from Starbase in Texas at 12:48 UTC with Booster 21 and Ship 41, and the ship deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites into low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 275 km. It was the first Starship mission to deliver an operational payload.
The flight did not go entirely to plan. One of the ship’s six Raptor engines shut down early during ascent, and flight controllers initially said the vehicle would not commit to orbit. After engineers confirmed the vehicle had enough redundancy, SpaceX went ahead with the burn that put the ship into orbit. NPR reported that the decision came about 22 minutes into the flight.
The booster made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, although several of its engines shut down during descent. SpaceX ended the ship’s flight early instead of completing the planned six-orbit coast of roughly ten hours. The ship re-entered and made a controlled splashdown in the Pacific about three hours after launch.
The result matters to NASA because it is meant to support the Artemis lunar programme, which depends on a Starship-based lander. Flight 13 on 24 July had been a suborbital test in which the ship survived a simulated landing over the Indian Ocean but the booster landing failed.
SpaceX has listed Flight 15 for no earlier than 8 November from Starbase, with Booster 22 and Ship 42. Before Flight 14, Elon Musk said Flight 15 would be the last mission before an attempt to catch the ship with the launch tower’s arms. As of 28 September SpaceX had not confirmed whether that attempt would still be made. Launch dates for Starship have often slipped.
Sources: Wikipedia: List of Starship launches; NPR: SpaceX’s Starship launches on first orbital mission.
Featured image: A Starship launch seen from the International Space Station (photo from an earlier flight). Photo: NASA/Don Pettit (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.
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