(Bloomberg) – The giant SpaceX Starship rocket lifted off on Monday morning (28) in its first orbital flight test, a crucial milestone that could pave the way for the test rocket to commence regular satellite launches.
The Starship lifted off at 7:49 a.m., local time, from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in South Texas, for what may be a test flight lasting nearly 10 hours. The rocket carries 26 updated Starlink satellites, which SpaceX plans to deploy into orbit and integrate into the existing space-based internet network.
The mission is underway and is expected to reach orbit approximately 25 minutes after launch.
Monday’s test flight — the 14th for the Starship — is a pivotal moment for SpaceX, since all prior orbital flights of the rocket had been deliberately kept short of orbit to maximize safety. Now, U.S. regulators have approved SpaceX to move the Starship to the next stage, trusting that the company can carry the rocket safely to orbital speeds and bring it back to Earth in a controlled manner.
If successful, the flight could pave the way for many other orbital flights. With this launch, SpaceX will add its first updated Starlink satellites, known as V3, to the growing fleet of more than 11,000 spacecraft already in orbit. The Starship previously launched Starlink V3 satellites in an earlier launch, but they ended up disintegrating in the Earth’s atmosphere, as planned.
SpaceX’s Chief Financial Officer, Bret Johnsen, labeled this mission as a “revenue-generating flight” for the company, as the V3 satellites are production-quality and will be integrated into the broader network. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also made strong statements about the overall capacity increase of Starlink provided by the V3 spacecraft.
“We expect a very rapid increase in Starlink communications revenue with the V3 satellite,” Musk said during SpaceX’s first results teleconference in August. He added that the satellite has “more than 10 times the capacity of the V2 satellite, and we will launch 10 times more.”
The Starship is central to all of SpaceX’s grand ambitions. The rocket is not only responsible for deploying the Starlink V3 satellites, but also has the mission of placing into orbit up to a million future satellites that will serve as AI data centers in Earth’s orbit — a project that fueled SpaceX’s blockbuster IPO this summer.
Ultimately, Starship aims to realize Musk’s goal of sending humans to other worlds, such as the Moon and Mars. However, there is still a long development path to go for SpaceX to reach distant places in space, such as demonstrating the ability to refuel Starship in orbit.
Moreover, SpaceX wants Starship to be fully reusable, an achievement no other rocket has accomplished. To this end, SpaceX plans to “recover” the two main parts of the Starship — the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft — back on Earth at the launch platform after each flight.
SpaceX has already captured the Super Heavy rocket using the Starship’s launch tower three times. Musk said at the All-In Summit that if the next flight is successful, SpaceX will attempt to capture the Starship spacecraft for the first time on the 15th test flight.
“And then, by the end of this year, but more likely at the start of the next, we will relaunch the ship and the booster,” Musk said.
In this flight, the Super Heavy booster, which sends the Starship into orbit, will return to Earth and attempt a controlled splashdown off the Texas coast. After the 10-hour mission, the Starship spacecraft is expected to return from Earth’s orbit and splash down in the Pacific Ocean, west of Chile.
SpaceX will again test the Starship’s heat shield to verify whether the spacecraft can withstand extremely high temperatures during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. In the previous flight, the Starship returned safely and remained intact even after landing in the Indian Ocean. SpaceX was able to recover the spacecraft and study the heat shield’s performance during the descent.
Some experts warned that the Starship’s heat shield design is still not robust enough for the rocket to be fully and rapidly reusable. However, Musk stated during SpaceX’s August results teleconference that he considers the “heat shield issue resolved.”
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