Starship Reaches Orbit for First Time, Deploys Starlink Satellites

SpaceX's next-generation Starship rocket achieved orbit for the first time on Monday, overcoming a mid-flight engine shutdown to deploy an initial batch of Starlink satellites, the company said.

The uncrewed vehicle, standing about 40 stories tall and comprising a Super Heavy booster topped by the Starship upper stage, lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase facility on the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville. The booster propelled the upper stage into space before returning to splash down in Gulf waters under engine control, a contrast to the hard landings it made on two earlier missions.

Shortly after reaching space, one of Starship's three main engines cut off earlier than planned. A SpaceX spokesperson initially said on the company's live stream that the craft would not attempt to reach orbit, but minutes later reversed that assessment after engineers confirmed an engine burn remained possible. The burn succeeded, placing the vehicle in orbit.

Starship then began releasing 26 next-generation Starlink satellites one at a time at a planned altitude of roughly 269 km (161 miles). The mission was expected to complete six Earth orbits over a 10-hour voyage — its longest to date — before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile.

Reaching orbit has been a long-delayed goal for Starship. Since 2023, all 13 previous test flights had remained in suborbital space, despite a development effort spanning nearly a decade and costing SpaceX more than $15 billion. Monday's flight counted as the 14th test but carried the first orbital payload: a set of Starlink satellites that analysts estimate could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in projected revenue for the company's Starlink unit.

According to SpaceX, the V3 satellites on this mission can handle 10 times more data than the V2 mini-sats the company has been launching in batches of 20 or 30 aboard its Falcon 9 rockets. Elon Musk wants to launch the higher-capacity V3s in groups of 60 per flight once Starship enters routine operation, a target he now aims to reach late this year.

The orbital debut follows SpaceX's record-breaking initial public offering in June, which made it the sixth-largest US company by value. Much of its market worth — $2 trillion as of Friday's close — rests on Starship, designed as the world's first fully reusable spacecraft. The vehicle is also central to NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon's surface for the first time since 1972 and establish a long-term lunar presence as a step toward human exploration of Mars.

A key objective for the flight was surviving the return to Earth, beginning with a deorbital firing of one Raptor engine and a precise angle for atmospheric re-entry. The final descent is designed to end with a thruster maneuver flipping the vehicle vertical so it hits the sea nose-up. While future missions call for a similar touchdown on land in Texas, no recovery of the spacecraft was planned for this flight.