SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today
5 hours ago
- SpaceX's Starship megarocket will attempt its first orbital flight on Monday, Sept. 28, with a 75-minute launch window opening at 8:15 a.m. EDT from Starbase in South Texas.
- Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, standing 407 feet tall, with both stages designed for full and rapid reusability.
- Flight 14 will carry 26 next-gen Starlink Version 3 satellites to orbit, marking the first deployment of a planned megaconstellation of up to 100,000 spacecraft.
- The Ship upper stage will circle Earth six times and splash down in the Pacific Ocean off Chile nearly 10 hours after launch, a major departure from previous suborbital flights.
- The Super Heavy booster is scheduled to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff.
- Future operational flights plan to catch both stages with the launch tower's 'chopstick' arms, and upcoming tests will need to demonstrate orbital refueling and life-support systems for crewed missions like NASA's Artemis lander.
- Starship's success is seen as key to enabling human settlement of the Moon and Mars.