Aerospace giant SpaceX announced on Tuesday that it plans to launch Starship for the 14th time on September 22. The upcoming event will mark Starship’s first journey to orbit.
Previously, Starship has flown passively safe suborbital trajectories to maximize public safety. Entering orbit around Earth marks the next phase in developing the spacecraft, which is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.
The 75-minute launch window will open at 7:15 a.m. CT, according to SpaceX’s press release.
Starship’s initial orbital mission is expected to fly at an altitude of around 275 km above Earth and complete approximately six orbits around the planet over the course of a nearly 10-hour flight, with splashdown targeted in the Pacific Ocean to the west of Chile, the company informs.
With the launch, SpaceX aims to test several upgrades introduced after the 13th flight, including hardware and software changes and modifications to Starship’s heat shield.
“The booster’s primary test objective on Flight 14 will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and landing burn at an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America. There have been several modifications to hardware and software to address issues seen on the previous flight,” company announced.
Additionally, with the upcoming launch, SpaceX intends to deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites into the constellation for the first time. Each satellite will add 1 Tbps of capacity to the constellation, which is expected to significantly expand the connectivity speeds, according to the company’s statement.