By SpaceX rolled Super Heavy Booster 21 out to the launch pad at Starbase, Texas, on the night of September 20 into September 21.
The move came ahead of the planned Starship Flight 14 launch, now targeted for September 28, 2026.
Booster 21 completed a 33-engine static fire test as part of pre-flight preparations.
Ship 41 separately completed a 6-engine static fire test.
The flight was delayed six days from its original September 22 target.
Booster 21 was rolled out to the launch pad at Starbase, Texas, on the night of September 20 into September 21 in preparation for the flight.
Booster 21 completed a 33-engine static fire test, and Ship 41 completed a 6-engine static fire test ahead of launch.
Flight 14 is intended to be Starship’s first true orbital mission; earlier flights had only flown ‘passively safe’ suborbital trajectories that avoided a full orbit.
The mission plan calls for deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites during the flight.
Ship 41 is expected to complete six orbits of Earth before a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, about 10 hours after liftoff.
Unlike some earlier flights, Super Heavy Booster 21 will not attempt a catch at the launch tower; instead it is set to perform a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX said it made unspecified ‘modifications to hardware and software’ to address issues seen on the previous Starship flight.
For the first time on a Starship mission, SpaceX plans to fly two previously recovered heatshield tiles, marking an initial step toward heatshield tile reuse.
Starship launches from Starbase, SpaceX’s private launch site near Boca Chica in South Texas.
Starship is designed to be fully reusable and is central to SpaceX’s plans for satellite deployment, Moon missions under NASA’s Artemis programme, and eventual Mars missions.
The vehicle consists of the Super Heavy booster as the first stage and the Starship upper stage, both powered by SpaceX’s Raptor engines.
SpaceX Starship full stack, Starbase, Texas (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
