Grok Bot summary: Starship Flight 14, the first orbital Starship flight.
🔥 Ascent
- During the climb, one Raptor vacuum engine shut down early.
- Starship made up for the lost thrust by burning its other five engines for longer than planned.
- It still reached its planned suborbital path. That path is "passively safe," meaning the ship would come back down safely on its own if nothing else happened.
✅ Go for orbit
- Once it was on that path, the flight control team checked the ship's systems.
- The three sea-level Raptor engines needed for later burns were healthy, so the team gave a "go" for orbital operations.
🌍 First time in orbit
- Starship relit one sea-level Raptor for an orbit insertion burn.
- **It entered orbit around Earth for the first time ever.**
🛰️ 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed
- After a short coast, Starship released all 26 Starlink V3 satellites.
- SpaceX soon made contact with every one of them through laser links, ground stations and Starlink user terminals.
- Next, the satellites run on-orbit checks and raise their orbits, then start serving customers.
- Because of the engine problem on the way up, the team cut the time in orbit short "out of an abundance of caution."
- They brought Starship down in the northern Pacific Ocean. That was one of two landing zones agreed before launch, and it was cleared of ships and aircraft.
🔻 First-ever deorbit burn
- Starship relit one sea-level Raptor to slow down and drop out of orbit.
- It then made it through atmospheric reentry and descent to the planned splashdown point.
🌊 Landing burn and splashdown
- For the final landing burn and flip maneuver, all three sea-level Raptors relit.
- Starship **splashed down on target** in the Pacific Ocean.
📌 Starship firsts on this flight
- First time reaching orbit
- First real payload deployed from orbit (26 Starlink V3 satellites)
- First deorbit burn
- A controlled splashdown on target, despite losing an engine on the way up
💡 Why it matters
Getting to orbit, releasing real satellites, and coming back down under control are key steps toward Starship's big goals: flying Starlink at scale, fully reusable rockets, and eventually the Moon and Mars. Flight 14 did all of that, even after losing an engine.
@_Shadow36 You should buy $Letspump shadow, deployed by narc the same dev behind $alon and I had CTO 521 days ago
the slogan is perfect for ending the launchpad wars.
Let's Pump
Starship Flight 1 vs Flight 14, same moments. On Apr 20, 2023 the stages never separated and the vehicle was lost about 4 minutes after liftoff.
Today Starship hot staged, reached orbit and splashed down in the Pacific after 3 hours 8 minutes. 🚀
Starship Flight 14 in 30 seconds. Liftoff, hot staging, Super Heavy splashdown, first orbit, 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed, deorbit burn, reentry and Pacific splashdown, with the mission clock from the SpaceX webcast. 🚀
Elon loves Prometheus (he’s posted “Prometheus Unbound” ) and has already engaged with Atelier Missor. A 50-ft statue gifted right at Starbase, torch raised toward the Starships… it’s way too on-brand for him to stay silent.
View from one of the first 26 Starlink V3 satellites as it drifts away from Starship in orbit, with Earth rolling into view. 🌎🛰️
Starship Flight 14 delivered all 26 to orbit today.
🎥 @Starlink (3x speed)