This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: SpaceX sent its Starship super-rocket on its first orbital flight—a shorter-than-planned test mission that put operational Starlink satellites into orbit for the first time. The rocket, 407 feet (124 meters) tall, rose from its launch pad at SpaceX's Starbase complex on the Texas coast at 7:50 a.m.
UTC) today and completed nearly two orbits. This was the 14th flight in the Starship test program, but all previous flights had been suborbital. On its way up, one of the 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines on Starship's Super Heavy booster shut down prematurely.
Despite the single engine failure, the climb to space proceeded as planned, and the booster executed a safe splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. One of the six engines on the upper stage, also known as Ship, also experienced an early shutdown. For a few minutes, SpaceX's team debated whether to go ahead with a follow-up orbital insertion burn or end the test flight without deploying satellites.
The team decided to go ahead, and the 19-second burn proceeded smoothly. "Starship is orbital," Mission Control declared, drawing cheers from SpaceX employees watching the live video feed. During the mission's key orbital phase, Starship's satellite deployer worked like a giant Pez dispenser to push out 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites, one after another, at an altitude of 160 miles (270 kilometers).
SpaceX previously deployed V3 satellites during a flight test in July, but because Starship didn't reach orbit on that flight, those satellites re-entered the atmosphere and burned up after a series of tests. The V3 satellites are heavier than the current V2 Mini models. They're designed to enable data download speeds of roughly 1 terabit per second, which is about 10 times the capacity of SpaceX's existing constellation of more than 11,000 satellites.
That additional capability will be key for SpaceX's future direct-to-device services—and to take full advantage, SpaceX will be transitioning to Starship from its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket. "This one flight was like 20 Falcon 9 flights in terms of bandwidth," SpaceX commentator Dan Huot said. Today's test flight was scheduled to last 10 hours, but SpaceX said the flight control team decided to shorten the mission "out of an abundance of caution, given the engine issue experienced during ascent." SpaceX shifted from its primary mission profile to a backup plan that sent the upper stage to a Pacific Ocean splashdown north of Hawaii a little more than three hours after launch.
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