SpaceX Starship Flight 14 will be the first Starship into orbit, and the first to deploy operational Starlink V3 satellites. Flight 14 is going to include a lot of firsts: • First Starship flight intended to reach orbit. Flights 1–13 were deliberately suborbital. • First orbital insertion burn after... stage separation. • First deployment of operational Starlink V3 satellites into the constellation • First in-space deorbit burn with a single Raptor, then a controlled reentry from orbital velocity. • First reuse of Starship heat-shield tiles (two tiles were removed from Ship 40 that was floating in the Indian ocean). These satellites that will deployed will actually be in service for SpaceX. Elon mentioned they would need approximately 1,000 V3 sats (sometime by Q2 2027), before it actually moves subscriber growth. 26/1,000! Elon also said this will be the final flight before SpaceX attempts to actually catch the ship with the tower on land, bearing in mind that everything goes well. September 22nd (hopefully) will be fun day.show more

@Starlink 26 V3 satellites is not even half of the full payload capability so your math on number of flights is off by more than a factor of 2

@Starlink Which math?

@Starlink 26 Starlinks … the real number is ~60 per operational flight

@Starlink The 26/1000 is the number of sats, not flights! Elon said they’d need about 1,000 to move growth. That’s what I’m referring to. 🚀

@JoeTegtmeyer @Starlink Starship will carry and deploy 60 v3 satellites every launch.

@JoeTegtmeyer @Starlink I know

@Starlink Near future flights will boast sats deployed per flight to 60. 1000 sats will be deployed fairly rapidly as the sat count per flight, and flights count per month rate steadily increases.

@Starlink Correct

@Starlink Flight 14 is first orbit plus real Starlink V3.

@Starlink @grok is this current?

@Starlink Flight 14 needs one boring KPI: payload deployment time in seconds, not another list of firsts.

@Starlink

@Starlink That split image says it all: stainless-steel brute force on the left, precise V3 deployment on the right. If Flight 14 nails orbit and payload deployment, it’ll feel like a giant OTA update—just with fire, steel and a much better view.

@Starlink This is so cool. Just WoW!

@Starlink It's like a planter sewing seeds.