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SpaceX Sends Starship Into Orbit for the First Time After Midflight Engine Loss

September 28, 2026 at 09:21 EDT

Robotics

SpaceX's Starship reached Earth orbit for the first time on Monday, a major step for the company's fully reusable mega-rocket program, after lifting off from Pad 2 at Starbase in South Texas. The milestone came with a complication: the Starship upper stage lost one of its six Raptor engines after stage separation, and SpaceX briefly paused its orbital attempt before pressing ahead.

September 28, 2026 · SpaceX

Starship reaches orbit

Flight 14 put Starship into Earth orbit for the first time after an upper-stage engine loss, turning a long-running test campaign toward operational payload work.

Starlink V3 satellites

26 Tbps

planned added capacity

planned Earth orbits

1 of 6

upper-stage Raptors lost

Capacity jump visualized

Falcon 9 V2 mini launch

about 10x

Flight 14 V3 payload

Starship's V3 satellite load is framed as a capacity step-change for Starlink.

The mission path

1. Liftoff

Pad 2, Starbase

→

2. Insertion

Starship enters orbit

→

3. Deployment

26 Starlink V3

→

4. Return

deorbit and splashdown

Why it matters

Orbit opens the next development phase: operational payloads, longer-duration thermal data, and a clearer route to routine Starship missions.

What remains hard

The upper-stage engine loss kept attention on deployment, deorbit, heat-shield data and the controlled splashdown needed for future reuse.

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