SpaceX's flagship rocket, Starship, successfully entered Earth orbit for the first time on Monday, completing the commercial space company's most ambitious mission to date. This means the giant rocket, which has cost more than $15 billion and taken nearly a decade to develop, has finally crossed the critical threshold from suborbital testing to orbital flight.
According to Reuters, Starship lifted off from Starbase in Texas at 7:49 a.m. local time on Monday. Although one engine shut down early during the flight, the spacecraft continued to carry out a key burn maneuver after engineers assessed the situation in real time, and it successfully entered its intended orbit. The mission also deployed SpaceX's new-generation V3 Starlink satellites for the first time, with each satellite offering roughly 10 times the download capacity of the current V2 satellites.
The rapid reversal in news also triggered pre-market volatility. After the engine failure was reported, SpaceX-related stocks fell about 2% in pre-market trading; the shares then quickly recovered to near flat after the company confirmed it would still attempt to reach orbit. Finally, as orbit insertion was confirmed, market sentiment stabilized.
Engine failure scare: engineers reverse the call in real time
The dramatic turn in the mission came shortly after launch. SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot initially said during the company's livestream that because one engine had shut down early, Starship would not be able to enter orbit, and the planned deployment of 26 upgraded Starlink satellites would also be canceled.
However, engineers later reassessed the spacecraft's condition and confirmed it still had the conditions needed to perform the critical orbital burn. Huot then updated his earlier assessment on the livestream and announced that the attempt to reach orbit would continue. In the end, Starship successfully completed the orbital burn and entered its intended orbit, achieving this key milestone.
What orbit insertion means: a key milestone years in the making
Entering orbit is an important benchmark for validating a new launch vehicle's payload delivery capability. For Starship, this goal is significantly behind the timeline SpaceX had previously envisioned — Musk had expected Starship to reach orbit in 2022 and planned to begin deploying satellites in 2023.
Since 2023, Starship's previous 13 test flights had all failed to complete orbital flight. Although SpaceX has invested more than $15 billion in the project and the development cycle has spanned nearly a decade, this 14th flight finally achieved orbit insertion. Under the plan, the mission will complete six orbits around Earth, with a total journey of about 10 hours, before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile, which would also make it the longest flight of Starship to date.
V3 satellite debut: commercialization accelerates
Another major highlight of the mission was the first entry into orbit of the new-generation Starlink V3 satellite. It is reported that a single V3 satellite has a download capacity of about 1,000 gigabits per second, roughly 10 times the 96 gigabits per second of the current V2 satellite, and is expected to greatly enhance the service capability of the Starlink broadband network.
The successful deployment of the V3 satellite also means Starship is beginning to move from a test vehicle toward an actual commercial launch system. SpaceX says Starship's first commercial service is expected to begin in 2028. With greater payload capacity, Starship is expected to lower the cost of putting payloads into orbit and further expand the application space of commercial spaceflight.
Musk has previously said that Starship's ultimate goal is to achieve hundreds or even thousands of launches per year. If that goal is eventually realized, its launch frequency would far exceed the operating model of traditional spacecraft.
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