SpaceX has cleared the biggest hurdle in its Starship program. On Monday, September 28, 2026, the company’s giant Starship rocket reached Earth orbit for the first time — a milestone Elon Musk’s team has chased for years and one that brings NASA’s return to the Moon a step closer.
The 407-foot Starship–Super Heavy combo lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas at 8:48 a.m. EDT, marking the 14th full-scale test flight of the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built.
What Happened on Flight 14
- First orbital flight: All 13 previous Starship test flights since 2023 flew suborbital trajectories. This was the first designed to circle the Earth.
- 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed: About 34 minutes after liftoff, Starship began releasing its payload — the first operational satellites ever launched aboard Starship. SpaceX confirmed contact with all 26.
- An engine failed — and it still worked: One of Starship’s six engines shut down during ascent, briefly threatening the orbital goal. Engineers quickly verified the three Raptor engines needed for orbital insertion were healthy, polled “go for orbit,” and the insertion burn succeeded.
- Early return: SpaceX originally planned about six orbits over nearly 10 hours at an altitude of roughly 170 miles (275 km). The company later decided to deorbit after about three hours, with splashdown in a pre-cleared area of the Pacific Ocean west of Chile.
- Booster not recovered: The Super Heavy booster was intentionally expended, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico within minutes of liftoff.
Why It Matters
Reaching orbit is the benchmark every serious launch vehicle must pass — and Starship missed Musk’s original target of 2022 by four years, after a development campaign that has reportedly cost more than $15 billion. Proving Starship can carry real payloads to orbit turns it from an experimental rocket into an operational one.
The stakes go beyond SpaceX. Starship is the vehicle NASA has chosen to land astronauts on the Moon under the Artemis program. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated the team on X, writing that NASA is “excited to help where we can and for Starship missions to become routine.”
It is also central to SpaceX’s business. Starlink — with around 11,000 satellites already in orbit — is the company’s largest and only profitable segment. One Starship can carry about 60 Starlink V3 satellites per flight, roughly 20 times a Falcon 9’s capacity, and the new V3 design offers 10x the downlink and 22x the uplink capacity of the previous generation. For more space and tech stories, check our Technology section.
What’s Next
SpaceX says routine Starship service could begin later this year, and the company is reportedly winding down Falcon 9 — with no new Falcon 9 launches offered beyond 2028, though existing contracts continue. The next big test: catching a returning Starship with the giant mechanical arms at Starbase, a maneuver SpaceX wants to attempt on a subsequent flight.
Musk himself has stressed caution over speed. “If the spacecraft breaks apart over land and rains debris onto people, our popularity would diminish very rapidly,” he said at a business summit earlier this month. “That’s why we’re being extremely cautious here.”
With the company now public following its record June IPO at a roughly $2 trillion valuation, every Starship milestone is also a market event. Flight 14 just delivered the biggest one yet.
Note: Mission details such as the exact splashdown time and the cause of the engine shutdown are still developing and may be updated by SpaceX.
