Starship flight test 14

Starship flight test 14

Mission type	Flight test
Operator	SpaceX
Spacecraft properties
Spacecraft	Starship Ship 41
Spacecraft type	Starship (Block 3)
Manufacturer	SpaceX
Start of mission
Launch date	NET early September 2026
Rocket	Super Heavy (Block 3, B21)
Launch site	Starbase, OLP-2
End of mission
Landing site	Super Heavy: Gulf of Mexico (splashdown expected; no tower catch planned) Ship: Indian Ocean (splashdown expected; tower catch deferred to a later flight)
Payload
~20 operational Starlink V3 satellites
SpaceX Starship flight tests

Starship flight test 14 is the upcoming fourteenth flight test of the SpaceX Starship launch system, and the vehicle's first attempt at reaching an orbital trajectory.

Background

Flight 13 aftermath

Flight 13 lifted off from Starbase on July 24, 2026, and delivered what SpaceX regarded as its cleanest V3 test to date. Super Heavy Booster 20 fired all 33 Raptor 3 engines through ascent, hot-staging, and boostback, while Ship 40 deployed 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites and went on to complete a precisely targeted, intact splashdown in the Indian Ocean the first time a Ship had survived splashdown without breaking apart. The booster's return was less tidy: during the landing burn, only 10 of its 13 center engines reignited, and five of those subsequently shut down, sending Booster 20 into the Gulf of Mexico at high speed rather than the soft touchdown SpaceX had targeted. SpaceX nonetheless treated the flight overall as a major validation of the V3 design, pointing to Ship 40's intact recovery and clean satellite deployment, and noted the ship's splashdown was accurate enough to support a tower-catch attempt on a future flight.

On August 4, during the company's first earnings call since its June 2026 initial public offering, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Flight 14 would be the first flight to carry Starlink V3 satellites to an operational orbit, and that the vehicle's heatshield issues were a "solved problem." Musk said SpaceX would, subject to regulatory sign-off, attempt to catch Ship with the launch tower for the first time on that flight, then tentatively targeted for the end of August.

On August 14, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he expected Flight 14 to launch in early September, and that a cadence of roughly one flight a month or faster through the rest of the year would give NASA confidence in Starship's schedule for the Artemis lunar effort.

On August 20, Musk tempered the catch timeline, saying SpaceX would "probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months" rather than on the immediate next flight. He noted Ship 40's ocean splashdown had already been accurate enough that a tower would have caught it had one been positioned at sea, and put the first reflight of a recovered Ship at the end of 2026 or early 2027. Coverage attributed the slip mainly to the pace of FAA approval for the tower catch's expanded landing-zone safety profile rather than to any new technical setback, with SpaceX's underlying confidence in the hardware said to remain high.

Vehicle testing ahead of launch

Booster 21

Booster 21 completed cryogenic proof testing at Massey's Test Site between July 18 and 20, 2026, then was staged in Mega Bay 1 to await its static-fire campaign. As of the third week of August it remained there while SpaceX prioritised Ship 41's testing; SpaceX appeared to be taking extra time to qualify the booster so as to avoid repeating the landing-burn issue seen on Flight 13. Once Ship 41 clears its own campaign, Booster 21 is expected to move to Pad 2 for its static fire, the last major ground test before the two vehicles are stacked for flight. Between the Flight 12 and Flight 14 campaigns, SpaceX has continued upgrading Pad 2 with additional propellant storage, extra loading pumps, and new electromechanical tower arms meant to make catch attempts quicker and more reliable, while the older Pad 1 is separately being rebuilt with similar upgrades. SpaceX is also pursuing a dedicated Starship static-fire stand at Kennedy Space Center, informally referred to as "Project Ignition," to support dual-coast testing as the launch cadence increases.

Ship 41

Ship 41 rolled out to Massey's Test Site on August 18, 2026, to begin its engine test campaign. It completed a single-engine static fire simulating the deorbit burn on August 19, followed by a full-duration, 60-second, six-engine static fire on August 21 the vehicle's final major pre-flight qualification milestone. Ship 41 was then expected to return to Mega Bay 2 for final flight preparations. If the pace of prior campaigns holds, Flight 14 could launch in the early-to-mid September window once Booster 21 completes its static fire and the stack clears FAA review.

Payload

Flight 14 is expected to carry roughly 20 Starlink V3 satellites bound for operational service, building on Flight 13's brief on-orbit demonstration of the same satellite generation. Starlink V3 satellites are large, flat spacecraft with laser inter-satellite links and expansive solar arrays, intended to replace SpaceX's current Starlink constellation; they are currently too large for any other rocket in SpaceX's fleet to carry, but Starship has the capacity to carry large commercial payloads like these even ahead of full reusability.