SpaceX launched its Super Heavy-Starship rocket on Monday from the Starbase facility on the Texas Gulf Coast. Despite losing an engine during ascent, the vehicle achieved orbit on its first orbital test flight.
The 400-foot-tall vehicle lifted off at 8:49 a.m. EDT. Its 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster generated roughly 16 million pounds of thrust. During the climb, the Starship upper stage lost one engine, but flight controllers cleared the spacecraft to continue toward orbit.
Mission Profile and Engine Anomaly
The rocket flew a southeasterly trajectory over the Gulf of Mexico. Two minutes and 20 seconds into flight, the vehicle initiated hot-staging separation, firing the upper stage’s six Raptor engines while the booster fell away. The booster performed a controlled vertical splashdown in the Gulf.
Starship reached a 180-mile-high orbit through two separate burns. About 25 minutes into flight, the spacecraft was confirmed in orbit at an altitude of 170 miles.
Starlink Satellite Deployment and Early Splashdown
The mission called for deploying 26 third-generation Starlink internet satellites. SpaceX confirmed contact with all 26 satellites and reported they were operating nominally. The craft was scheduled to complete six orbits over roughly ten hours, but SpaceX ended the mission early after about three hours, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii.
Program Context and Insurance Implications
The flight followed 13 previous suborbital test flights, roughly half of which ended in explosions. Flight 12 in May also saw an RVac engine fail, and Flight 13 in July was aborted on the launch pad when four Super Heavy engines failed to ignite. NASA intends to use a modified Starship to land astronauts on the lunar surface under the Artemis program in 2028, with a $4.05 billion contract awarded for two human-rated vehicles.
SpaceX treats anomalies as expected features of an active test program. The global space insurance market is watching the vehicle’s path toward commercial operations, with premiums for new systems priced considerably higher than proven rockets.
