SpaceX's Starship rocket completed its 14th test flight Monday, reaching low-Earth orbit for the first time and deploying 26 of the company's newest generation Starlink broadband satellites. The launch from Starbase, Texas, at 8:49 am EDT marked the first time the 407-foot-tall rocket achieved orbital velocity.
Starship's upper stage accelerated to orbital velocity—a capability held back in previous test flights. The 26 Starlink V3 satellites, too large for SpaceX's Falcon 9, were released from the Starship's cargo bay using a pulley and cable system.
Each Starlink V3 satellite adds 1 terabit per second of capacity to the Starlink network, a tenfold increase over older satellites launched on Falcon 9 rockets. This capacity jump directly improves unit economics: SpaceX can either add subscribers at the same bandwidth or increase bandwidth per customer without raising costs proportionally.
The flight began with 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster generating up to 18 million pounds of thrust. After the booster detached and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, the upper stage continued its ascent. SpaceX flight controllers restarted one Raptor engine to reach orbital velocity—a critical test of in-space engine restart capability.
During ascent, one of the six Raptor engines on Starship's upper stage shut down prematurely, requiring the remaining five engines to burn longer to compensate. Two of the 33 booster engines also failed during ascent, but this proved less critical for the upper stage's orbital insertion.
The orbital deployment capability lets SpaceX rapidly expand the Starlink constellation with higher-capacity satellites, directly driving revenue growth and market share in the satellite internet sector.
