SpaceX's Starship to try first orbital flight on September 22 — carrying the first V3 Starlinks into service
SpaceX announced its 14th Starship test flight will attempt orbit for the first time on September 22 — deploying 26 next-gen V3 Starlink satellites built for 10x downlink capacity.
The biggest rocket ever built is about to attempt the thing it has never done: reach orbit — and it’s bringing the next generation of Starlink satellites with it.
SpaceX announced September 15 that its 14th Starship test flight is targeted for September 22, with a 75-minute launch window opening at 7:15 a.m. CDT, TechCrunch reported. Reuters confirmed the mission, pending regulatory approval, would send the vehicle into orbit for the first time and deploy the first batch of Starlink V3 satellites.
The details, per Light Reading’s breakdown:
- The mission aims to place Starship into orbit about 275 km above Earth, complete roughly six orbits over a nearly 10-hour flight, then splash down in the Pacific west of Chile.
- It will deploy 26 V3 satellites into the Starlink constellation — a combined payload of about 26 Tbit/s of capacity, according to SpaceX.
- Each V3 supports about 1 Tbit/s of downlink and 160 Gbit/s of uplink — roughly 10x the downlink and 22x the uplink of the current V2 satellites.
In July, Starship’s 13th flight deployed V3s on suborbital trajectories purely as a test; they burned up in the atmosphere after about 20 minutes. This time, if it works, the satellites stay up and enter service.
“Flight 14 is the first point where Starship can begin adding usable broadband capacity rather than only proving the vehicle,” Evercore ISI analysts said in a research note quoted by Light Reading. “A successful orbital insertion and V3 deployment would provide the first tangible proof point for the next leg of the broadband capacity ramp.”
The V3 design also underpins Starlink’s Gen 2 satellites for Starlink Mobile and its next-generation direct-to-device service, which will tap spectrum acquired from EchoStar. Musk has said Starship must fly “reliably several times per week” before SpaceX retires Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy — so this test is as much about the rocket’s business case as the satellites.
What it means for rural readers: Starlink congestion in some rural areas comes down to capacity. V3s are the step-change that lets Starlink carry far more users at higher speeds — and eventually serve denser areas without degrading rural performance. If Flight 14 succeeds, the broadband capacity ramp goes from promise to payload. The FCC votes September 30 on opening more satellite spectrum for exactly this kind of capacity. Starlink’s rivals are racing too — AT&T has added Amazon Leo to its enterprise lineup.
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