Starship Reaches Orbit for the First Time on Flight 14
CONFIRMEDDate confidence: CONFIRMEDStated as firmHow firmly the source words the date: confirmed, scheduled, estimated, delayed or unverified.Show all CONFIRMED pins86% CONFIDENCEOverall confidence: 86%How well the pin's source and references back up its dates.Weighted average of how firmly 6 references, the source included, support the pin's start and end times; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newestShow all pins at 75% confidence or betterCNBC[2] and NPR[3], 28 Sep 2026: liftoff at 7:48 a.m. CT from Starbase ("At 7:48 a.m. CT, Starship's Super Heavy booster ignited its 33 rocket engines"); Launch Library 2 records T-0 as 12:48:59 UTC, accurate to the second.
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SpaceX's 14th Starship test flight lifted off from Starbase, Texas at 7:48 a.m. CT on 28 September 2026 and became the first Starship to reach orbit, after 13 earlier flights that were all suborbital.
One of the ship's six engines failed during ascent; about 22 minutes into the flight SpaceX judged it safe to continue, and Starship began releasing 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first of the new generation and Starship's first operational payload. The Super Heavy booster made a soft splashdown in the Gulf off Starbase instead of a tower catch.
The ship was planned to fly about six orbits at roughly 275 km over nearly 10 hours before splashing down in the Pacific west of Chile.