Starship makes orbit, Flight 15 preps in full swing

7 min read · reported by NASASpaceflight

SpaceX made significant strides in the Starship program during Flight 14. Booster 21, despite losing a few engines, still completed its entire flight. Ship 41 reached orbit despite losing a Raptor Vacuum engine on ascent, deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and returned safely to the Pacific Ocean just north of Hawaii.

While a post-flight review will take place internally, SpaceX is already staging for the next flight and a potential return to catching vehicles, with Flight 15 possibly taking place in October.

The prelaunch chilldown for this launch resembled the Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) conducted on Sept. 24, in which the methane reclaim vent started up one hour 30 minutes before propellant load instead of two hours, compared to Flights 12 and 13. This will make tank farm operations with a full stack quicker in the future.

This was already after SpaceX had pushed the launch by 31 minutes; SpaceX would end up pushing the launch to 7:48:59 am CDT after a quick hold at T-00:56:47. Later in the flight, SpaceX said the delays were to ensure better lighting at their Pacific Ocean splashdown points.

LAUNCH! Starship Flight 14 launches from Starbase Pad 2 on its first orbital mission attempt.

Live on X and YT: https://t.co/qFSXNsNURa pic.twitter.com/YcZoz3Rndr

— NSF – NASASpaceflight.com (@NASASpaceflight) September 28, 2026

The rest of the countdown proceeded without any holds or issues, as Booster 21 and Ship 41 were filled with around 5,500 metric tons of propellant and then went straight to liftoff. Liftoff was right at 7:48:59 am CDT, and Booster 21 had all 33 engines running right at liftoff.

Then, at T+ 00:01:16, a single Raptor engine in the inner ring of 10 went out; however, Booster 21 continued to hot staging with 32 of 33 engines.

At hot staging, Ship 41 ignited all six Raptor engines, and Booster 21 ignited 31 of 33 for the initial phase of the boost back burn. The engine that was turned off during ascent still appeared to glow as the booster aft section appeared on the ship flap cam. Booster 21 completed its full-duration boost back burn, going from 31 Raptors to 11, then down to 3 before shutting down and starting the glide back.

Starship’s Raptor engines ignite during hot-staging separation. Super Heavy boosted back towards its splashdown site in the Gulf of America pic.twitter.com/0DcBz1wayt

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 28, 2026

Booster 21 then completed its glide back and lit only 11 of 13 engines for the landing burn; the two engines that did not light were the same ones lost on ascent and during boost-back startup.

Booster 21 then completed its landing burn by performing a soft splashdown in the Gulf before blowing up. SpaceX intentionally set off the Flight Termination System as a “test of the safety system”, but also to turn the booster into thousands of pieces, so they wouldn’t have to go salvage anything.

Booster 21 also used a different landing profile than the previous several boosters that have actually landed.

In footage captured by NSF photographers as it came through the clouds, the booster uses its initial 13-engine burn to bleed off tons of speed, then switches down to five engines.

Once down to five engines, the booster pitches toward the tower to get close, then levels out while gimbaling the ignited engines to roll into the proper orientation to be caught by Pad 2’s chopsticks.

Booster 21 lands! pic.twitter.com/1PgY1R6LPC

The maneuver is required because Pad 2’s tower faces southeast and differs from all the other towers SpaceX is currently building. It was built this way because of land constraints when the pad was being built.

Ship 41’s ascent went well until T+ 00:07:18, when Engine 6 Raptor Vacuum SN 127 shut down. This marks the second time in three Block 3 flights that a Raptor Vacuum engine has gone out during the ascent burn. Luckily, though, Block 3 has engine-out capability, and Ship 41 made it to second-stage engine cutoff at T+00:08:35 by burning a little longer.

Then came the nerve-racking wait to hear whether or not this issue with the Raptor Vacuum would make SpaceX abort the orbital injection burn. Without the burn, Ship 41 was on a suborbital track of -40 x 278 km at a 30.5-degree inclination, which is a bit off the 32 degrees they are authorized for Starlink V3.

Go for orbit! Starship will soon perform a burn with a single Raptor engine to enter an ~275 km orbit of Earth pic.twitter.com/HQxgQYc4eZ

At T+00:11:20, Dan Huot, SpaceX’s Communications Manager, announced that launch control had decided not to go for orbit because of Raptor vacuum issues encountered during ascent. Then, about a minute later, Dan Huot announced that teams were still reviewing the data and might change their mind about trying for orbit.

After a near-10-min wait, SpaceX mission control polled: Go for orbit!

Next up came the orbital insertion burn, which started at T+ 00:25:20 and was a 95 m/s burn that placed Ship 41 in a 262 by 275 km, 30.5-degree inclination orbit. Then, after a short coast, the first of 26 Starlinks left the payload bay at T+ 00:35:05; this deployment sequence continued until T+ 01:04:22, when the final Starlink satellite left the payload bay, lit by one of the three Starlinks equipped with cameras and spotlights. The payload bay door was fully closed by T+ 01:05:04.

Starship has begun deploying its payload of 26 @Starlink V3 satellites. This deployment sequence will take ~30 minutes pic.twitter.com/ycIdAx5Lbe

At T+ 01:26:46, Dan Huot announced that the teams had decided to take the first contingency landing zone and come back early. This meant Ship 41 would complete just under two orbits and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean just north of Hawaii. While this was a bit disappointing, SpaceX was always going to be very conservative with this flight, because the last thing engineers want is to strand a ship in orbit.

During the next 45 mins, Starship would coast in orbit partly around the world. During this time, Ship 41 passes over Hurricane Polo, which had recently made landfall on the west coast of Baja California and then Mexico. At points during orbital daylight, the Starlink train that Ship 41 deployed behind the ship itself is seen in several shots during the coast phase and up till the deorbit burn.

Ship 41’s deorbit burn occurred at T+ 2:12:18 just over South Africa and the Cape of Good Hope. After the deorbit burn, Ship 41 fell slowly toward Earth. Ship 41’s reentry fully began around T+02:47:00; however, the light show and the start of plasma formation began around T+2:40:00 as Ship 41 hit thicker and thicker parts of Earth’s atmosphere.

Starship is reentering the atmosphere pic.twitter.com/fvWq4NwD23

This reentry is actually the smoothest Starship has handled so far, even though it is the fastest reentry speed of all the other controlled reentries. This is because Ship 41 reentered at a shallower angle compared to the suborbital flights. This means it experienced lower peak heat but for a longer period.

After a beautiful reentry and an uneventful one, Starship completed its landing burn and flip maneuver before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at T+ 03:08:30, which makes this mission three times longer than any other Starship flight to date.

During the mission, SpaceX also confirmed that all 26 V3 Starlinks contacted the network, ground stations, and even user terminals. Over the next few weeks, those 26 Starlinks will raise their orbits to around 400 km before becoming fully operational.

Splashdown confirmed. Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on the first orbital flight of Starship! pic.twitter.com/urjmiwnvNl

Although Ship 41 returned during the first contingency checkpoint shortly after payload deployment, this is a major milestone for SpaceX and the Starship program. Ship 41 got to orbit and deployed an operational payload, and Booster 21 completed its entire mission, which bodes well for a catch with Booster 22. SpaceX still has work to do, mainly losing Raptor engines on ascent, boostback, and landing. Hopefully, Flight 15 will be clean and have no Raptor losses.

Following the successful Flight 14, Flight 15 will be Booster 22 and Ship 42, and both are currently in their respective Mega Bays being fitted with Raptor engines. Currently, Booster 22 is slated to be ready for static fire within the next two weeks, and Ship 42 could be ready within two to three weeks. Accounting for post-static-fire preparations, possible Flight 14-related modifications, and payload loading, Booster 22 and Ship 42 could be flight-ready by the end of October.

The final hold-up will depend on whether SpaceX decides to repeat Flight 14’s mission profile and try for a 10-hour mission with Ship 42. Currently, the Starship Super Heavy launch license covers only Flight 14 and would need to be modified for Flight 15, but the modification process will be quicker if SpaceX opts to fly the same mission.

Pad 2 Servicing Structure Being Installed

After three flights, the now Orbital Launch Mount looks in great shape, and SpaceX is using the new servicing structure to refurbish and service the hold-down arms and clamps, rather than using a scaffolding floor.

It’ll be interesting when Flight 15 launches, because Flight 16 could be from LC-39A. Because as heard from people at Kennedy Space Center, LC-39A has all systems activated and is just waiting for vehicles and its roof to be installed.

Reported by NASASpaceflight. Reproduced unedited by Everything Space. View the original →