SpaceX Plans First Orbital Launch of Starship Rocket

SpaceX plans to launch its Starship rocket early Monday in an effort to reach orbit for the first time. According to SpaceX's website, the 75-minute launch window begins at 8:15 a.m. ET, or 7:15 a.m. local time, from Starbase, Texas. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) informed CNBC that it issued a license authorization for the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy Flight 14 launch and reentry operations on September 26. With this 14th test flight of Starship, SpaceX also plans to deploy 26 of its new Starlink V3 satellites. Starship is considered critical to SpaceX's expansion plans, particularly for scaling its Starlink business, which was its largest and only profitable segment as of the second quarter. SpaceX currently operates around 11,000 active satellites in orbit, compared to roughly 650 for competitor Eutelsat OneWeb. On SpaceX's earnings call in August, CEO Elon Musk stated, "It's not out of the question that at some point, Starlink will deliver a majority of the world's internet, at least in countries where we're allowed to operate, which is the vast majority of countries." SpaceX went public in June in the largest IPO on record and is now valued at about $2 trillion. The Starship Super Heavy rocket and booster are designed to be fully reusable and to lift more cargo for less cost into orbit than any prior spacecraft. None of the 13 earlier test flights were intended to reach orbit, but with the 14th flight, SpaceX aims for Starship to circle the planet. The company is also preparing Starship for a major NASA test flight next year and intends to use the rocket to bring U.S. astronauts back to the moon's surface. SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell mentioned during the All-In Summit earlier this month that the company plans to use Starship to launch "AI compute satellites" into orbit in 2027. The new V3 satellites, produced at a SpaceX facility in Redmond, Washington, are equipped with solar arrays that generate twice as much power as previous generations and are designed to transmit data more rapidly to Starlink subscribers.