SpaceX will try to put the upper stage of its Starship mega-rocket into Earth orbit for the first time on September 28, during the vehicle's 14th test flight. The company announced the orbital attempt on Tuesday, September 15, and had initially planned the launch for September 22 before pushing it back on Thursday, September 17, TechCrunch reported. The rescheduled flight has a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT and is set to carry 26 V3 satellites, the first batch of third-generation Starlinks to join SpaceX's network of 10,000 internet satellites.
What is riding on the flight? A successful launch would be the first Starship flight to generate revenue for SpaceX's launch division, even if that revenue comes from another division of the company, TechCrunch reported. The company has spent billions of dollars on the program and is looking to retire its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets in favor of Starship. Founder and CEO 
Elon Musk has said that will happen once Starship is flying "reliably several times per week," to save "scarce SpaceX engineering and production resources." SpaceX needs Starship to reliably reach orbit, return to Earth and be quickly reused to meet the launch cadence it promised during its IPO process.
What will SpaceX not attempt? Musk recently walked back claims that SpaceX might use its launch tower to catch the Starship upper stage on this flight, saying an explosion would be too big a setback for the company at this point. SpaceX also won't try to catch the Super Heavy booster, which struggled to properly relight its engines after separating from the upper stage on Flight 13 in July.
What has changed since Flight 13? SpaceX said Tuesday it had made another round of "several modifications" to the booster's hardware and software to "address issues seen on the previous flight." The upper stage, which did not reach orbit on Flight 13 but flew smoothly through a simulated landing in the Indian Ocean, did not explode when it tipped over into the water, allowing SpaceX to tow it back to its Texas headquarters, TechCrunch reported. SpaceX said it has since made additional changes to the Starship heat shield based on what it learned from studying that recovered stage.
Figures referenced: Elon Musk. — JudgeMarket.
