<\/p>\n Today (Sept. 17), however, SpaceX announced a new launch date \u2014 Sept. 28. It gave no explanation for the delay.<\/p>\n Now targeting to launch Starship Flight 14 as early as Monday, September 28, pending regulatory approval https:\/\/t.co\/3nG9wffG6ASeptember 17, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Liftoff, from SpaceX’s Starbase<\/a> site in South Texas, will occur during a 75-minute window that opens at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1215 GMT and 7:15 a.m. local Texas time). You can watch it live here at Space.com when the time comes.<\/p>\n The upcoming flight will be the 14th overall for Starship, which debuted in April 2023<\/a> and has flown twice so far in 2026. But the 408-foot-tall (124-meter-tall) vehicle’s first 13 jaunts were all suborbital, so Flight 14 will be a landmark.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n “By going to orbit, the next phase of developing Starship to be fully and rapidly reusable can begin,” SpaceX wrote in a Flight 14 mission description<\/a>.<\/p>\n “This will also mark the first time we plan to deploy Starlink V3 satellites<\/a> into the constellation, delivering a payload that will dramatically expand connectivity speeds and reliability around the world,” the company added.<\/p>\n Starlink<\/a>, SpaceX’s network of broadband satellites in low Earth orbit<\/a>, currently consists of more than 11,000 active spacecraft. None of those are the larger, more capable V3 version, which are designed to launch on Starship.<\/p>\n Flight 14 will carry up 26 of these next-gen craft \u2014 the first of many, if all goes to plan. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk<\/a> has said the company wants the Starlink megaconstellation to eventually consist of 100,000 V3 satellites<\/a>.<\/p>\n Three of the Starlink craft launching on Flight 14 have been outfitted with cameras and will photograph the heat shield on Starship’s upper stage, known as Ship, after deployment. SpaceX will use this imagery to study and potentially improve the heat shield, which protects Ship during its return trip through Earth’s atmosphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n If all goes according to plan on Sept. 28, the 171-foot-tall (52-m-tall) Ship will complete six orbits of Earth at an altitude of about 171 miles (275 kilometers). The vehicle will then maneuver its way to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile about 10 hours after launch, SpaceX wrote in the mission description.<\/p>\n That’s a very different plan than previous Starship flights. On those suborbital missions, Ship stayed aloft for just 65 minutes or so, did not complete an orbit of Earth and came down in the Indian Ocean<\/a>, off the coast of Western Australia.<\/p>\n But Flight 14 will be more of the same for Starship’s first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy. If all goes to plan, the giant rocket will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff, as it has done on a number of previous flights.<\/p>\n So there will be no catch \u2014 of either Ship or Super Heavy \u2014 by the “chopstick” arms of Starbase’s launch tower on Flight 14. SpaceX has pulled off tower catches of Super Heavy<\/a> on three occasions to date but has never done so with Ship. This recovery method will eventually be the norm on Starship flights, leading to faster and more efficient reuse of the vehicle, Musk has said.<\/p>\n So, while Flight 14 aims to check a very big box \u2014 reaching orbit \u2014 other milestones will be reserved for future flights. A Ship tower catch will be among the most anticipated, along with refueling the vehicle in orbit, something that will be required for missions to the moon<\/a>, Mars and beyond.<\/p>\n Editor’s note: This story was updated at 1:35 p.m. ET on Sept. 17. It first ran on Sept. 15 with the original target launch date of Sept. 22.<\/p>\n![\"Space\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/flexiimages\/dpnbewsyjn1783958986.svg\")
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