Starship Flight 14

As soon as Monday, September 28

On the Starship Flight 14 launches page, SpaceX prints: The 14th flight of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Monday, September 28, pending regulatory approval. The 75-minute launch window will open at 7:15 a.m. CT.

That is the closed NET on this page as of the 2026-09-18 desk sweep. It is not a countdown that has already gone. SpaceX also prints that as is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change. A live webcast is planned to begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, with coverage through splashdown and the potential for hours of live views from Starship as it orbits Earth.

• NET printed — as soon as Monday, September 28, pending regulatory approval
• Window — 75 minutes, opens 7:15 a.m. CT
• Webcast — ~30 minutes before liftoff
• Flown on this page — not Flight 14

First orbital mission, not a landing

The upcoming flight is planned to be the first to send Starship into orbit around Earth. Flight tests until this point have intentionally flown passively safe suborbital trajectories. By going to orbit, SpaceX says the next phase of developing Starship to be fully and rapidly reusable can begin.

Starship’s initial orbital mission is expected to fly at an altitude approximately 275 km above Earth and complete approximately six orbits around the planet over the course of a nearly 10-hour flight, with splashdown targeted in the Pacific Ocean to the west of Chile. The page links the Updates explainer for what going to orbit means — that is the companion paper.

• Altitude printed — approximately 275 km
• Orbits printed — approximately six
• Duration printed — nearly 10-hour flight
• Splashdown target — Pacific Ocean west of Chile
• Not on this page — a flown result, a catch of the ship, a Mars entry

Twenty-six Starlink V3

This will also mark the first time SpaceX plans to deploy Starlink V3 satellites into the constellation. The upper stage’s primary objectives include the first orbital insertion maneuver, the deployment of 26 Starlink V3 satellites, a deorbit burn using a single Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry, descent, and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Starship will only execute a burn to enter orbit after the flight control team has ensured there is sufficient redundancy on hardware critical to doing the subsequent deorbit burn at the end of the mission.

Capacity lines as printed: Each Starlink V3 satellite will add 1 Tbps of capacity to the constellation, for a total of 26 Tbps of capacity added on this mission alone. That’s ~10x the capacity compared to a single launch of V2 mini Starlink satellites on Falcon 9. After deploy, satellites unfold antennas and solar arrays, make initial contact via radio frequency and laser links, raise orbits with onboard thrusters, and — following on-orbit checkouts — should begin serving customers as soon as a few weeks after launch.

Three of the satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starship’s heatshield and transmit imagery down to operators — a readiness test for return to launch site on future missions, not a claim that this ship will be caught.

• Payload count — 26 Starlink V3
• Capacity — 1 Tbps each; 26 Tbps this mission; ~10x vs one Falcon 9 V2 mini launch
• Orbit burn gate — redundancy for the later deorbit burn first
• Camera sats — three, heatshield scan
• Serving customers — as soon as a few weeks after launch (plan, not flown)

Booster: Gulf of America, not a tower catch claim

The booster’s primary test objective on Flight 14 will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America. Hardware and software modifications address issues from the previous flight.

SpaceX’s own Flight 13 recap on this page: after stage separation and flip, Super Heavy used all 33 engines on boostback for the first time; ice clogging on the three center engines ended the maneuver early; landing burn saw 8 of 13 planned engines reignite before a hard splashdown in the Gulf. The upcoming Super Heavy has filtering hardware and relight-software changes. That is Flight 13 history printed here. It is not a Flight 14 flown result.

• Booster objective — offshore landing burn, Gulf of America
• Not printed as the objective — tower catch on Flight 14

Heatshield experiments; first tile reuse planned

Several upgrades and experiments related to Starship’s heatshield will also be tested, with some improvements derived from data gathered from the Flight 13 Starship as it floated in the Indian Ocean. Printed items: additional retention mechanisms on tiles at highest ascent-loss risk; addressing flow paths behind tiles for plasma; flying multiple areas with a curved tile design that has shown the ability to reduce heating in the gaps between tiles. And finally, two tiles recovered from Ship 40 are planned to be reflown on Ship 41, marking the first tile reuse for Starship.

• First tile reuse — planned (Ship 40 → Ship 41), not flown on this page
• Source of improvements — Flight 13 Indian Ocean data, as printed

What this desk will not invent

No claim that Flight 14 has flown. No catch of Ship 41. No splashdown result. No regulatory approval closed. No change to Mission’s Mars-city numbers from this launches page. No Louisiana delta — still no Starbase Louisiana / Vermilion / Pecan Updates slug. The Updates “Starship to Orbit” explainer (15 Sep 2026) still stands; this page names the first orbital attempt’s NET and objectives.

Selected primary sources

SpaceX, “Starship Flight 14,” https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-14 (missionId=starship-flight-14), CMS as of desk sweep 2026-09-18 America/New_York. Featured launch tile remains Starship Flight 14 (link starship-flight-14). Companion Updates post: “Starship to Orbit,” 15 September 2026, https://www.spacex.com/updates/orbital-starship. SpaceX has not published a Flight 14 flown result on this page. This desk will not borrow one.