SpaceX registered a significant milestone by conducting the 14th test flight of Starship this Monday (28). The imposing rocket took off punctually at 9:48 AM Brasília time and successfully completed its first orbital mission.
This event constituted the third flight of 2026 and also the third of the vehicle's Version 3. It followed the success of the 13th test, which occurred in July and was notable for the softest landing of a upper stage of the spacecraft to date. In that previous test, the vehicle landed in the sea and remained afloat for several weeks until it was collected by the company for technical inspections.
Initially, the forecast was that Flight 14 would last approximately 9 hours and 50 minutes. However, during the live broadcast, SpaceX announced a change in planning, reducing the expected duration to three hours. The company justified this change in a statement, explaining that previous tests had maintained suborbital trajectories to ensure public safety while the team absorbed data on the rocket's performance.
Standing about 124 meters tall, Starship faced its biggest challenge in this flight: reaching Earth orbit. This achievement is considered vital, as NASA relies on this spacecraft to transport astronauts from the Artemis program to the lunar surface.
At 2 minutes and 34 seconds into the flight, Starship successfully executed the separation between the Super Heavy and Ship 41 stages. Subsequently, the booster completed its landing burn above the designated point in the Gulf of Mexico, while Starship continued with its burn to reach space. In this specific test, SpaceX did not intend to capture the structures using the tower arms.
The Super Heavy booster, which received engine improvements to prevent previous failures, landed softly in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after takeoff, allowing the upper stage to proceed toward orbit. The spacecraft experienced the premature shutdown of one of the Raptor 3 engines but managed to compensate for this loss and complete the burn as planned.
At 10:11 AM, the continuation of the spacecraft to orbit was confirmed. The orbital insertion burn of Ship 41 was successfully completed after 25 minutes and 17 seconds of flight, a decision made by SpaceX after analyzing the ascent. The activation of a single Raptor 3 adjusted the craft's trajectory to a circular orbit at an altitude of 275 km.
At 35 minutes of flight, SpaceX began releasing 26 Starlink V3 satellites aboard Starship. This batch represents the first operational set of this new version, contrasting with the previous mission, which used only prototypes in suborbital trajectory. SpaceX's ultimate goal is to position one hundred thousand of these units in orbit to expand the wireless internet network.
The release of all satellites from Ship 41 took approximately 30 minutes. After being released, the satellites opened their solar panels to autonomously navigate to operational altitude. Three of these satellites were equipped with specialized cameras to inspect and evaluate the thermal shield plates of Starship immediately after the main vehicle separated.
According to the company, each new satellite adds 1 Tbps of capacity to the network, totaling 26 Tbps additional just in this mission. This volume is about ten times greater than the capacity provided by a Starlink V2 minisatellite launch carried out by a Falcon 9 rocket, considerably increasing the speed and coverage of the connections offered by the company's orbital system.
Analyzing the significance of this technical milestone, Marcelo Zurita, president of the Paraíba Astronomy Association (APA), member of the Brazilian Astronomical Society (SAB), technical director of the Brazilian Meteor Observation Network (Bramon), and columnist for Olhar Digital, emphasized during the live broadcast that Starship's high capacity makes commercial implementation more feasible than distant projects, such as space data centers.
Zurita clarified: 'The main thing is establishing Starship as a functional vehicle for putting satellites into orbit, which would be the first step of a commercial use of Starship – for now, it's just spending money.' He added: 'So, the first commercial use is what they did today. Although it is for an internal client, Starlink itself, it is already a commercial use of this spacecraft.'
The expert pointed out that the version destined for the Moon requires extra life support care to meet NASA's Artemis program, while crewed missions to Mars face obstacles related to artificial gravity limitations, postponing those plans until after 2040. Additionally, the real cost reduction depends on future full recovery tests of the stages.
Zurita stated: 'From now on, they would theoretically be able to serve other clients, but they continue testing because the launch cost will only be reduced when they manage to do everything they did today and recover and reuse both Starship and Super Heavy.' He projected: 'So, this should start happening in the next test flights, and from there we would have a commercially ready ship to operate, to be able to make regular launches at a lower cost.'
The astronomer concluded that 'The great revolution of Starship is this. The whole set, with Super Heavy and Starship forming this gigantic 124-meter-tall rocket, will have the most affordable launch system already available. With this cost reduction, they should be able to attract a good clientele in the market. From there come the adaptations for the lunar Starship and in-space refueling, which is another fundamental test for deep space missions, both for the Moon and for Mars, if that is truly the objective for the coming years.'
At the end of the mission, the spacecraft returned to the atmosphere at noon, culminating in a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean shortly before 1 PM.
