Starship Flight 14 Clears Launch Rehearsal Before First Orbital Attempt

Starship has finished its last full launch-day simulation before SpaceX tries something the vehicle has never done: reach orbit.

SpaceX announced Thursday night that the launch rehearsal for Flight 14 was complete. The company is still targeting Monday, September 28, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. Central, pending regulatory approval.

This was not an engine firing. It was the full choreography around one—loading the stacked rocket with propellant and running the countdown systems through the steps they will face on launch morning.

Launch rehearsal complete ahead of Starship Flight 14 pic.twitter.com/h5LBYyBqi4

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 24, 2026

SpaceX describes Flight 14 as Starship’s first orbital mission and the opening of a new phase in the program. Every previous integrated flight sent the upper stage along a suborbital path; Ship 41 is supposed to stay up for roughly six trips around Earth before returning.

The payload is just as important as the trajectory. Flight 14 is set to carry 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites, giving Starship its first real constellation-deployment job instead of another batch of demonstration simulators.

SpaceX says the larger V3 design is built to add far more capacity per launch. Getting those satellites into orbit would make Flight 14 both a vehicle test and the first practical proof of why the company built a rocket this large.

The mission does not end with a catch attempt. Booster 21 is planned to splash down in the Gulf about seven minutes after liftoff, while Ship 41 is expected to remain in orbit for nearly ten hours before targeting a Pacific splashdown off Chile.

Space.com reports that the wet dress rehearsal took the 407-foot vehicle through the major launch-day procedures without igniting its engines. The test followed Wednesday’s stacking of Ship 41 on Booster 21 at Starbase’s Pad 2, putting the complete rocket through an integrated countdown instead of testing either stage alone.

The outlet notes that the flight plan is dramatically longer than Starship’s earlier roughly one-hour suborbital tests. Six orbits turn reentry timing, thermal protection and vehicle endurance into a much tougher examination.

The planned Pacific return also moves the upper stage to a new splashdown region. SpaceX plans ocean splashdowns for both stages on this flight.

The company will be collecting the data needed before orbital missions can become repeatable rather than exceptional.

SpaceX’s stacking footage shows how quickly the pieces came together before Thursday’s rehearsal. The official images put the complete flight vehicle on Pad 2 less than five days before the target window.

Stacking Starship ahead of Flight 14 pic.twitter.com/jLsgN2jj6d

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 23, 2026

The hardware may be rehearsed, but SpaceX has not said the regulatory condition is gone.

The Federal Aviation Administration says Starship operations at Boca Chica require a vehicle operator license. Its review covers public safety, national-security and foreign-policy concerns, insurance requirements and environmental effects.

The agency’s Starbase project page lists completed environmental work for additional launch trajectories, return-to-launch-site profiles and expanded Pacific contingency landing areas. Those decisions clear pieces of the regulatory landscape, but they are not the same thing as SpaceX announcing that Flight 14 has final mission-specific authorization.

That is why the words “pending regulatory approval” still matter. A completed rehearsal means SpaceX has checked off a major hardware and operations milestone; it does not let the company launch without the FAA requirements being satisfied.

If Monday’s window holds, the real test will be much bigger than whether Starship clears the tower.

Flight 14 has to reach orbit, deploy useful satellites, survive hours in space and make a controlled return. Thursday’s rehearsal says the launch team is ready to try.

The next few days will decide whether the paperwork and the rocket arrive at the same starting line.