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SpaceX's Starship rocket achieved orbital insertion during its 14th full-scale test flight from South Texas, with the company confirming the spacecraft reached orbit at over 171 miles altitude and 16,000 mph. Despite the milestone, the company's stock reportedly dipped about one percentage point rather than rallying after markets opened.
SpaceX plans to launch its Starship rocket from Starbase, Texas on Monday morning within a 75-minute window opening at 8:15 a.m. EDT. Flight 14 will attempt to send the vehicle's upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time, where it is meant to deploy 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down in the Pacific near Chile after roughly 10 hours and six orbits.
SpaceX plans to launch its Starship rocket from Starbase, Texas, on Monday morning, aiming for the vehicle's first orbital flight after 13 prior suborbital tests. The FAA authorized the launch and reentry operations on Sept. 26, and SpaceX intends to deploy 26 new Starlink V3 satellites during the mission.
SpaceX confirmed it has finished a full launch rehearsal for Starship ahead of its 14th test flight, targeted for September 28 with an 8:15AM Eastern launch window. The rehearsal involved fueling the rocket, running through countdown procedures and simulating a scrub before draining propellant, all without liftoff.
SpaceX is preparing to launch its fourteenth full-scale Starship test flight on Monday, pending regulatory approval. The plan calls for Starship to orbit Earth six times over ten hours at an altitude of 171 miles before attempting a soft landing, following hardware changes to the Super Heavy booster after only 10 of 13 engines relit during the last landing attempt in July.
SpaceX is targeting September 28 at 8:15AM Eastern for Starship's 14th flight, pending regulatory approval, after pushing the date back from September 22. Unlike prior suborbital tests, this flight will send Starship into orbit for six loops around Earth over 10 hours and deploy 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites into the constellation. The Super Heavy booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, while the upper stage will later be deorbited into the Pacific.
Italian launch provider Avio says it is fielding a wave of new customer inquiries after SpaceX told several prospective clients it would not accept new commercial Falcon 9 orders. Avio CEO Giulio Ranzo said some of these spurned customers lobbied European institutions at the International Space Summit in Paris for subsidies to offset the higher cost of flying on Europe's Vega C, which reportedly runs about $60 million per launch.
SpaceX announced its 14th Starship test flight for September 22, targeting a 75-minute launch window starting at 7:15 a.m. CT. For the first time, the mission will attempt to place Starship's upper stage into Earth orbit while deploying 26 third-generation Starlink satellites.
SpaceX's Starship 40 flew a suborbital test from Starbase, Texas, to the Indian Ocean in about 65 minutes on July 24, deploying and later intentionally destroying 20 Starlink V3 satellites to validate the deployment system. Unlike prior test flights, this upper stage survived splashdown mostly intact, and SpaceX says retrieving and shipping it back to Texas will take several months.
The European Space Agency signed contracts totaling hundreds of millions of euros with three European launch startups—Rocket Factory Augsburg, PLD Space and Isar Aerospace—to fund continued development of their small launch vehicles. RFA received 186.9 million euros, PLD Space 158.9 million euros, and Isar Aerospace 197.8 million euros, mostly financed by their home nations with contributions from partner countries. A separate deal with MaiaSpace is reportedly close to finalization.
SpaceX and Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry announced plans for a 125,000-acre spaceport called Starbase, Louisiana, located at Pecan Island on the state's southern coast. The site will feature five launch complexes with two pads each, plus propellant production, power generation, vehicle processing facilities, and housing for workers, giving SpaceX a third launch location alongside its Texas and Florida sites.
SpaceX has flown its last Starlink mission on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral for the foreseeable future, according to company launch VP Kiko Dontchev. Going forward, Starlink launches from Florida will be handled by the still-developing Starship rocket, dropping the site's monthly launch count from roughly eight or nine to about two. SpaceX will instead lean more heavily on its Vandenberg pad in California to keep deploying Starlink satellites.