SpaceX's Starship rocket reaches orbit for 1st time despite failure of an engine

SpaceX (SPCX) put Starship into Earth orbit for the first time on Monday and deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites on board, despite an engine going out during ascent, a SpaceX representative said during the company's live broadcast.

"Payload deploy complete. All 26 @Starlink V3 satellites are in orbit," SpaceX posted on X at 9:54 a.m. ET, about half an hour after the ship began releasing them.

Ship 41 lost one of its six Raptor engines during ascent but finished its ascent burn and coasted on what SpaceX called a "passively safe suborbital trajectory" while engineers checked the ship's systems. At 9:11 a.m. ET, the company gave the "Go for orbit!" call.

Starship then fired a single Raptor engine for its orbital insertion burn. SpaceX said the burn put the ship "in orbit of Earth for the first time." The company had said it was targeting an orbit of about 275 kilometers. Super Heavy Booster 21 successfully separated from Starship and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico.

Every previous Starship flight stopped short of orbit, flying suborbital paths that ended in splashdowns or, on several tests, the loss of the vehicle.

Starship's payload included 26 Starlink V3 satellites, built to fly on Starship because they are too large for Falcon 9, which is SpaceX's workhorse rocket. 

SpaceX has said each V3 satellite will carry more than 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity, well above the V2 Mini satellites now in service. Starship releases them in sequence through a door in the side of the ship.

Monday's deployment marks the first time Starship has delivered an operational payload to orbit.

Starlink is SpaceX's largest business, and a working Starship is central to how the company plans to expand the network's capacity and reduce the cost of launching each satellite into orbit.

Monday's flight also comes as SpaceX is now a public company, putting the rocket program under investor scrutiny. 

Shortly before launch, SpaceX posted that it is "building the infrastructure of the future, from supercomputers to Terafab to Gigasat to a new Starbase in Louisiana."

Recently, SpaceX's AI compute business has helped push the stock higher, after it dipped below $100 shortly after its IPO.

Pras Subramanian is Lead Transportation Reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram.

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