SpaceX

Aerospace · Space Launch

Milestone

SpaceX targets Sept. 28 for Starship's first-ever orbital test flight

Ten years into development, Starship must prove it can circle Earth before it can ever fly astronauts to the Moon.

• SpaceX is targeting Sept. 28, 2026 for Starship Flight 14, the rocket's first attempt to reach orbit after 13 suborbital test flights.
• Starship is SpaceX's fully reusable megarocket, standing over 400 feet tall, designed to eventually carry cargo, Starlink satellites, and NASA astronauts to the Moon and Mars.
• The mission plans a roughly 10-hour flight, circling Earth about six times at 275 km altitude before a deorbit burn and splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile.
• Starship will carry 26 upgraded Starlink V3 satellites, the first batch of a planned constellation of more than 100,000 such spacecraft.
• SpaceX modified the Super Heavy booster's engine hardware and relight software after Flight 13 in July, when only 10 of 13 Raptor engines relit during landing, causing a hard impact and explosion.
• Reaching orbit is a prerequisite for NASA's Artemis 3 mission, which plans to use a Starship variant to land astronauts on the Moon as soon as 2027-2028.
• An orbital success would validate Starship's core reusability concept, unlocking regular satellite deployment cadence and the deep-space missions SpaceX has promised for a decade.