Engine Scare Fails To Stop 26-Satellite Starlink V3 Orbital Test

Light Reading reports that SpaceX’s Starship reached orbit and released 26 V3 Starlink broadband satellites, turning a flight that briefly appeared limited to a splashdown test into a live capacity deployment for the Starlink network.

The successful burn came after an early engine loss on the upper-stage Ship put the mission’s main objective at risk.

During Starship’s 14th test flight from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, the vehicle initially looked unlikely to ignite the burn needed to reach orbit.

SpaceX’s live feed even carried a caution from spokesman Dan Huot that the team had decided not to commit to orbit, though he added that the company was not giving up on the attempt.

A second decision changed the flight.

After extra checks, SpaceX determined about 22 minutes into the mission that Starship could proceed, then lit a Raptor engine roughly three minutes later.

The payload sequence began about 12 minutes after that, with the door opening for the first of 26 V3 satellites.

The deployment matters because V3 is the next capacity step for Starlink rather than a routine batch of small satellites.

Each V3 spacecraft supports about 1 Tbit/s of downlink capacity and 160 Gbit/s of uplink capacity.

That is a 10-fold improvement in downlink and a 22-fold improvement in uplink compared with a V2 satellite, giving Starlink a stronger path to serve residential and business users as the constellation adds higher-capacity spacecraft.

The mission also separated this test from the previous Starship flight.

The earlier attempt released 20 V3 satellites that were later sent to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere after tests.

This time, SpaceX confirmed that Starlink had made contact with all 26 deployed satellites.

The spacecraft were expected to unfold antennas and solar arrays, then raise their orbits using onboard thrusters before starting customer service within a few weeks.

Starship still did not complete the full-duration plan.

SpaceX later cut the mission short after three hours in orbit rather than ten and deorbited the vehicle to a splashdown area in the northern Pacific Ocean.

The company said the decision followed the engine issue during ascent and used one of two pre-coordinated landing zones cleared of sea and air traffic.

That ending leaves two operational conclusions.

The flight proved Starship could recover from an early ascent problem, reach orbit and deploy live Starlink payloads, but it also kept the program short of the longer orbital profile and catch-and-reuse milestones SpaceX wants.

A fully loaded Starship is expected to carry up to 60 V3 satellites, so the 26-satellite release was a partial demonstration of the broadband capacity the vehicle is meant to launch.