Starship’s 14th flight makes history, reaches orbit and deploys 26 Starlink V3 satellites - Watch LIVE

SpaceX's 14th test flight of Starship took off on Monday and made history by entering Earth's orbit for the first time. The rocket was given the go-ahead to move towards orbit after all tests were completed. The next step was the deployment of Starlink V3 satellites via Starship V3, with a total of 26 on board.

It did not move towards orbit until the engineers were confident that the rocket would successfully make it there.

Till now, all Starship test missions have been suborbital. Once the most powerful rocket ever made enters orbit, it will circle the planet about six times over 10 hours. The company completed a wet dress rehearsal on Thursday (September 24). It was stationed at Starbase with a 75-minute launch window that opened at 8:15 am ET. The launch is being live-streamed and will be available on the SpaceX website and its X page.

Elon Musk plans to use the Starship to return humans to the Moon and even take them to Mars. His dream of building a human colony on the Red Planet depends on its ability to demonstrate orbital flight.

With Starship, SpaceX is aiming to deploy its larger Starlink V3 satellites and help NASA return astronauts to the Moon. The company also wants to achieve full, rapid reusability to prove its commercial viability.

Starship went around Earth six times before it was given the go-ahead to move towards orbit. As it successfully reached its destination, engineers on the ground erupted in applause. Later, it started deploying the V3 satellites, with a total of 26 of them on board. The team successfully made contact with two of them soon after deployment.

Starlink V3 satellites

Starlink V3 is SpaceX’s next-generation satellite platform designed specifically to harness the massive volume and mass capacity of the Starship launch system. Compared to previous generations, V3 upgrades the bandwidth, array size, and network processing capabilities.