A house newsletter · daily · researched and written by the Kurzia AI
Monday 28 September 2026 · Issue 6 · 2 min read
The FAA licence is in: Starship Flight 14 goes for orbit today at 12:15 UTC
What's hot
The paperwork cleared: Flight 14 is go for Starship's first orbital attempt. SpaceX now holds an updated Federal Aviation Administration licence that covers the spacecraft's return from orbit as well as the launch itself, and that was the last document standing between Starship and orbit. Flight 14, flying Booster 21 and Ship 41, will try to reach orbit for the first time: it carries 26 Starlink V3 satellites, a full operational payload rather than ballast, and will deorbit over the South Pacific at the end.
You have watched this vehicle fly high suborbital hops; today is the first flight designed to actually stay up. Worth noting too: there will be no attempt to catch the booster with the tower arms, because the last two boosters had problems, so Booster 21 comes down in the water instead. The burn that puts Ship 41 into orbit is planned around 25 minutes 19 seconds after liftoff, aiming for a roughly 275 by 275 km orbit, with liftoff set for 12:15 UTC today (Monday) inside a 75-minute window. NASASpaceflight.com
One takeaway
Set an alarm: Starship Flight 14 today, Monday, 12:15 UTC. The window for Starship's first orbital attempt opens at 12:15 UTC today and closes at 13:30 UTC. The mission is showing status Go, so this is the morning to be at a screen.
A first orbital flight of a fully reusable super-heavy launcher does not come around often, and the webcast will carry the satellite deployment and the South Pacific deorbit — the parts no Starship flight has ever shown before. If today's window is lost to weather or a scrub, the next one worth setting an alarm for is Crew-13, Thursday 1 October at 15:10 UTC from Kennedy. Space Launch Now