Starship is due to fly again from Texas as SpaceX eyes major milestone - USA Today

SpaceX is reaching for the stars with the next flight of its Starship rocket – literally.

After more than three years of testing, the world's largest rocket could reach orbit for the first time. SpaceX said the major milestone will be the primary objective of the next Starship launch, set for no earlier than Sept. 22 from South Texas.

The mission would be the 14th flight test of Starship since April 2023 and the third of 2026.

The impending launch also comes at a crucial time for SpaceX, as tech mogul Elon Musk's company races to have the Starship rocket operational in time for NASA's next mission under its Artemis moon program. Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, also has grand dreams of Starship bringing humans to Mars.

Here's everything to know about a mission SpaceX refers to as "flight 14."

SpaceX is working toward a Tuesday, Sept. 22, launch of its Starship rocket, with a window due to open from 8:15 to 9:30 a.m. ET, the company announced.

The morning launch window marks a departure for SpaceX, which since November 2024 has conducted Starship flight tests in the evening to allow for "better conditions for visual observations," the company has previously said. The last time Starship got off the ground in the morning was during flight five on Oct. 13, 2024.

SpaceX launches the rocket at its Starbase company town and headquarters in Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border.

If the launch needs to be postponed, a planning advisory from the Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, suggests another opportunity is available the following day.

To date, Starship has never reached orbit in any of its 13 test flights. That's intentional on SpaceX's part, as the company has opted to fly the upper-stage of the rocket on suborbital trajectories "to maximize public safety while allowing for maximum learning," SpaceX said.

But in a massive milestone, flight 14 could become the first time Starship reaches orbit. The feat would mark a significant milestone as SpaceX works to develop Starship to become the first fully reusable launch vehicle, with both the lower- and upper-stages of the rocket able to fly multiple times.

Once again, the rocket's lower-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, is due to land off the Gulf Coast after providing the initial burst of thrust to get the upper-stage off the ground. SpaceX then expects Starship's upper-stage to reach an altitude of more than 170 miles high, where it's expected to complete six orbits of Earth during a mission lasting up to 10 hours.

The upper-stage is then due for a water landing in the Pacific Ocean to the west of Chile, according to SpaceX.

Flight 14 could also mark the first time that SpaceX's Starship deploys operations Starlink satellites following a series of test deployments on previous missions.

The 26 third-generation Starlink satellites – larger and more powerful than the nearly 11,000 broadband internet satellites SpaceX already operates in low-Earth orbit – could begin serving customers a few weeks after the launch, SpaceX said.

Starship is the massive rocket that SpaceX, the commercial company founded by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, has been testing since April 2023.

SpaceX is developing the rocket to be a fully reusable transportation system that can carry huge satellites and other payloads to space, meaning both the rocket and vehicle can return to the ground for additional missions.

Musk's vision has long been for Starship to be an interplanetary vehicle that takes humans to Mars, where they can establish a self-sustaining colony. While the world's richest man has indicated that SpaceX will focus on building a lunar city first, the company has already announced a human-led expedition to Mars' orbit – though it has not set a target date.

In order for that to be possible, Starship will need to be capable of refueling midflight in a complex process that requires two Starships equipped with docking adapters to meet in orbit to transfer propellant. The maneuver is one SpaceX has yet to test.

SpaceX is also under contract with NASA to develop a lunar lander configuration of its Starship to ferry astronauts to the moon, known as the Human Landing System.

NASA has high hopes that Starship will be ready in time for a mission due in 2027 known as Artemis III. SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin are competing to develop lunar landers for future crewed and uncrewed Artemis missions, both of which will be tested first in Earth orbit during the crewed Artemis III mission.

The venture will be the latest under the U.S. space agency's campaign to return American astronauts to the moon as early as 2028 and build a lunar outpost to enable a longterm presence.

Starship's most recent flight test in July marked the second flight of SpaceX's third-generation prototype of the rocket. Standing at 407 feet tall when fully stacked, the new iteration of Starship – known as Version 3, or V3 – is the largest and most powerful rocket SpaceX has ever launched.

Similar to previous designs, the fully integrated Starship spacecraft is composed of both a 236-feet-tall lower-stage booster known as Super Heavy, as well as a 171-feet-tall upper stage simply called Starship.

SpaceX last launched its Starship rocket July 24.

Powered by 33 of SpaceX's Raptor-class engines, the booster provided the initial burst of thrust at liftoff before separating from the upper stage minutes after launch and making a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico, renamed in the United States under executive order as the Gulf of America. While the booster was able to make a controlled landing, it was traveling faster than intended and made what the company later referred to as a "hard splashdown."

The upper-stage had a much longer flight, using its own six Raptor engines to fly halfway around the world before landing in the Indian Ocean. Along the way, the vehicle successfully deployed 20 third-generation Starlink satellites, which communicated with the rest of the Starlink network before they burned up in Earth's atmosphere as intended.

Significantly, the upper-stage, designated Ship 40, was able to slowly tip over and float in the ocean without exploding or sinking, as prior prototypes have done. That allowed SpaceX to haul the vehicle to shore near Australia and begin efforts to transport it all the way back to Starbase, Texas.

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@usatodayco.com