Starship goes orbital on Monday 🚀
Flight 14 is set for 09.28.26 at 7:15am CT. Booster 21 + Ship 41, 407 ft of stainless steel. After 13 suborbital test flights, this is the first one headed for orbit.
26 Starlink V3 sats on board. Each one adds 1 Tbps, so that's 26 Tbps from a single launch, roughly 10x a Falcon 9 Starlink mission. About 6 orbits and ~10 hours, then a deorbit burn and splashdown off Chile.
The road here:
• 05.22.26 Flight 12: first V3, first Raptor 3s, first launch from Pad 2
• 07.24.26 Flight 13: 20 Starlink V3 deployed, Raptor relit in space, ship splashed down fully intact
• 09.24.26 Full launch rehearsal done
• 09.28.26 Flight 14: first orbit (pending FAA)
Next up is ship-to-ship refilling in orbit. That's what unlocks the Moon.
Elon: "We're aiming to reach 30+ Starship launches/day in 2030" (08.20.26)
Elon: "May Starship have the Mandate of Heaven" (09.25.26)
Monday will be epic 🚀