SpaceX To Attempt Starship's First Orbital Flight Today, Deploying 26 Starlink V3 Satellites

SpaceX is set to send Starship into Earth orbit for the first time today on its 14th test flight. The flight will also be the first to deploy Starlink V3 satellites. The 75-minute window opens at 7:15 am Central Time (5:45 pm IST) from Starbase, Texas, and depends on weather. SpaceX plans to livestream from about 30 minutes before liftoff.

Flight profile

SpaceX says the mission will last nearly 10 hours, with Starship flying about 275 km above Earth. It will complete about six orbits before a targeted splashdown in the Pacific, west of Chile. Earlier tests followed deliberately suborbital paths for public safety. SpaceX says going to orbit begins the next phase of making Starship fully and rapidly reusable.

Satellites and safety check

The upper stage will make its first orbital insertion burn, release 26 Starlink V3 satellites, then fire a single Raptor engine to leave orbit before controlled reentry. SpaceX says it will only burn into orbit once controllers confirm enough redundancy on hardware critical to that deorbit burn. Each V3 satellite is designed to add about 1 Tbps of capacity, or 26 Tbps in total. SpaceX says that is roughly ten times the downlink of a V2 satellite. The company plans to start customer service within weeks.

Booster and heat shield

The Super Heavy booster will attempt a landing burn at an offshore point in the Gulf of America, with no tower catch. SpaceX says hardware and software have been changed to fix problems from the previous flight. India Today reported that three satellites carry cameras to inspect the heat shield, and that two previously flown tiles will be reused for the first time.

The flight tests whether Starship can become a reusable workhorse for future Moon and Mars missions.