First orbital insertion
SpaceX's Starship flew its 14th test flight and, for the first time, performed an orbital insertion burn. The upper stage carried 26 Starlink V3 satellites and released them in space. The flight used Booster 21 and Ship 41, both third-generation V3 vehicles. The mission aimed for about six orbits at an altitude of roughly 275 km, followed by a deorbit burn using a single Raptor engine and a controlled reentry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile.
Every earlier flight deliberately flew below orbital velocity so the ship would reenter even if engines failed. SpaceX had the capability earlier but made orbit a goal only now. The company said it would commit to the orbit burn only after confirming there was enough redundancy on hardware critical to the deorbit burn at the end of the mission.
Engine trouble on the booster
The Super Heavy booster was ditched in the Gulf of Mexico. On flight 13, three centre engines showed signs of ice clogging, which ended the boostback burn early, and only 8 of 13 planned engines reignited before a hard splashdown. SpaceX added hardware to improve filtering to the engines and software changes to make relight more reliable. Reports on flight 14 say the mission again met engine trouble and was cut short, though launch and satellite deployment went ahead.
What comes next
Starship is SpaceX's fully reusable launch system, made of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft. Getting to orbit is the step that lets the vehicle carry real payloads to useful altitudes rather than on short suborbital hops. Each flight feeds data toward eventually landing and reusing both stages, the goal that would cut the cost of reaching space. The flight was the second since SpaceX went public in June in what became the largest IPO in history.