SpaceX's Starship reaches orbit for the first time on its 14th test flight

SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket reached orbit for the first time on Monday in its 14th test flight, deploying 26 next-generation Starlink satellites, despite an engine failure that forced the company to cut the mission short, Reuters reports.

The uncrewed mission, launched from the company’s Starbase complex along the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville, Texas, was scheduled to last 10 hours but was reduced to three after one of Starship’s three main engines shut down prematurely following separation from the Super Heavy booster.

Company spokesman Dan Huot said on the live stream that “the team has made the call not to commit to orbit,” before engineers confirmed minutes later that the craft could still fire other onboard engines to boost it into orbit, which it did.

Once in orbit, Starship deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites one by one at an altitude of roughly 269km (161 miles), its first orbital deployments. “All 26 Starlink V3 operational satellites deployed and operating nominally,” Elon Musk wrote on X. The National Space Society congratulated SpaceX, noting the single deployment put up bandwidth equivalent to about ten Falcon 9 launches.

Starship’s controlled descent into the Pacific ended with a fireball as it touched down nose-up near Hawaii. The company had not planned to recover and reuse the spacecraft. The booster made an engine-controlled splashdown in Gulf waters.

The orbital debut came three months after SpaceX’s record-shattering June IPO made it the sixth-biggest US company by value. SpaceX was valued at $2 trillion as of Friday’s close, and its shares fell 2% on Monday. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated SpaceX on “getting Ship to orbit and managing every step in a safe, responsible, and especially inspirational way.”