BREAKING: Starship's Flight 14 could launch September 22, its first trip to orbit.
SpaceX says Starship Flight 14 is targeting Tuesday, September 22, pending approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Here are the highlights from official statement:
- This is the first Starship flight planned to reach orbit around Earth
- It will deploy Starlink V3 satellites for the first time, 26 of them
- Each V3 adds 1 Tbps of capacity, for 26 Tbps on this mission, about 10x a single Falcon 9 launch
- The flight lasts nearly 10 hours at about 275 km, over roughly 6 orbits, with splashdown in the Pacific west of Chile
- The booster will attempt a boostback and landing burn offshore, after engine fixes from Flight 13
- Starship will do its first orbital insertion, then a deorbit burn on a single Raptor and a controlled splashdown
- Three of the satellites carry cameras to scan Starship's heatshield
- Two heatshield tiles from Ship 40 will fly again on Ship 41, the first tile reuse for Starship
A live webcast starts about 30 minutes before liftoff on X
@SpaceX. The schedule is dynamic and could still change.
Source: SpaceX