SpaceX is targeting 22 September for the 14th test flight of its Starship rocket, aiming to reach orbit for the first time while carrying 26 Starlink V3 satellites. The mission marks a significant step for the programme, which is central to SpaceX's plans to exceed the payload capacity of its Falcon 9 rocket and to deliver NASA's Artemis III lunar lander in 2027, making a successful orbital demonstration an important milestone.

The flight is scheduled to launch at 1215 UTC, targeting an altitude of roughly 275km across six orbits before a deorbit burn and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean west of Chile; the Super Heavy booster will separately be ditched in the Gulf of Mexico. Engineers have made changes following flight 13, when the booster suffered a "hard splashdown" after ice clogging disrupted engine relights, including improved filtering, software updates and heatshield modifications such as curved tiles and reinforced tile retention. SpaceX says it will only commit to a final orbital insertion burn if there is enough hardware redundancy to guarantee a safe deorbit afterwards.