SpaceX Starship reaches orbit for first time on 14th test flight SpaceX launched its Starship rocket into orbit for the first time Monday, carrying 26 Starlink satellites on a planned six-lap flight around Earth to prove readiness for NASA's Artemis moon program. SpaceX launched its enormous Starship rocket into orbit for the first time Monday, aiming for six full laps around Earth to prove its readiness for NASA's Artemis moon program. SpaceX Starship Launch And Test Flight DetailsThe spacecraft almost did not achieve the long-desired goal after one of its engines shut down too soon. With everything else working well and the bad engine no longer needed, flight controllers decided after several tense minutes to proceed as planned. The launch marked Starship's 14th full-scale test flight from Texas' southern tip in three years. Founder Elon Musk's showpiece rocket, the biggest and most powerful ever built, carried 26 of the latest and most advanced Starlink satellites.They joined the 11,000 older models already providing internet service. The satellites popped out of the spacecraft one by one, drawing more cheers from the SpaceX crowds looking on from the launch site at Starbase, Texas. The spacecraft was circling the globe from an altitude of 170 miles, not just once but six times over almost 10 hours, ending with a Pacific splashdown near Chile.The first-stage booster was not meant to return to the Starbase launch site either, instead dropping into the Gulf of Mexico within minutes of the morning liftoff. The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket was designed from the start to be fully reusable, a key to lowering launch costs. Earlier test flights ventured no farther than the Indian Ocean halfway around the world, often crashing in flames and briefly skimming space.Engineer Modifications And Safety PrecautionsSpaceX managed to salvage the last Starship from the Indian Ocean in July. Engineers modified the newly launched Starship's heat shield based on hands-on inspections from the recovered spacecraft, which is being tugged back to Starbase. SpaceX wants to ensure that everything works before flying Starship back to Starbase. If the spacecraft breaks apart over land and rains debris onto people, our popularity would diminish very rapidly, Musk said at a business summit earlier this month.That is why we are being extremely cautious here. If all goes well with this orbital debut, the next Starship will return to the launch pad with giant mechanical arms grabbing the hovering spacecraft. If the catch works, and Musk gives it even or slightly better odds, then SpaceX will refly the spacecraft by year's end or early next year. NASA's Artemis III mission is coming up as soon as next summer, a triple-launch docking exercise in orbit around Earth.NASA Artemis Mission Lunar Lander PlansIt would involve an Orion capsule full of astronauts and competing lunar landers. Jeff Bezos' Blue Moon will blast off first, then Orion, which will close in for a linkup, then Musk's Starship for a docking with Orion once Blue Moon unleashes. The next mission, Artemis IV slated for no sooner than 2028, would have astronauts landing on the moon in either Blue Moon or Starship, whichever is ready first. Subsequent moonshots will alternate between the two billionaires' landers.Musk originally developed Starship for Mars, intending to launch scores of them with the red planet's first settlers. For now, he plans to focus on the moon and use Starship to haul satellites into orbit by the truckload, phasing out the company's frailer Falcon 9 rocket within several years. A second Starship launch site is nearing completion at Florida's Kennedy Space Center and a third is planned for Louisiana.