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Starship Flight 14 reached orbit: tracking its 26 Starlinks

Starship reached orbit for the first time on September 28, 2026 and left 26 Starlink V3 satellites behind. Their NORAD IDs, and how high they've climbed.

By the WatchSat editors · · 5 min read

The white exhaust plume of SpaceX's sixth Starship test flight rising over the deep blue Gulf of Mexico from the South Texas coast, seen from the International Space Station on November 19, 2024
Image: NASA/Don Pettit · Public domain

SpaceX's Starship went into orbit for the first time on Monday, September 28. The 14th flight lifted off from Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas, at 7:48 a.m. CDT (12:48 UTC), fired one engine for 19 seconds to finish the climb to orbit, and released 26 Starlink V3 satellites. The ship was supposed to stay up for close to 10 hours. SpaceX brought it down after about three, because of an engine problem on the way up.

All 13 earlier Starship flights were flown on suborbital paths on purpose. These are the first satellites Starship has put in orbit, and they're in our catalog under the international designator 2026-225.

We couldn't use any photo of Flight 14 itself. The one above is from Starship's sixth flight, on November 19, 2024, taken by NASA astronaut Don Pettit from the International Space Station as it passed overhead.

What happened on Starship Flight 14?

During the ship's ascent burn, one of its Raptor vacuum engines shut down early, and the other five engines burned longer to make up for it. SpaceX's commentator first said the burn to reach orbit would be called off. The flight team then checked the three sea-level Raptors, which the ship needs for every later burn, found them healthy and gave the go. One of them relit for 19 seconds and the ship was in orbit. Eight and a half minutes later, a dispenser in its nose started pushing out the 26 satellites. SpaceX says it made contact with every one, and three of them carried cameras to film the ship's heat shield tiles.

The original plan was about six orbits and a splashdown off the west coast of South America. "Out of an abundance of caution given the engine issue experienced during ascent," SpaceX said, the team cut the flight short. The ship fired its deorbit burn about 2 hours and 12 minutes after liftoff and came down north of Hawaii at 10:57 a.m. CDT (15:57 UTC), in one of two landing zones cleared of ships and aircraft before launch. It tipped over and exploded on the water, which Ars Technica reports was expected. The Super Heavy booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff. SpaceX hadn't planned to recover either stage.

An FAA spokesperson told Ars Technica that no mishap investigation is required, because every event on the flight stayed within what the agency had authorized.

CelesTrak's catalog lists the 26 satellites as 2026-225A through 2026-225AB, with NORAD IDs from 100855 to 100880. The ship itself is 2026-225AC, number 100881, and its record shows it decayed on September 28. Like every object cataloged since July 11, they carry six-digit NORAD IDs.

Astronomer Jonathan McDowell posted the first orbits later on launch day: 262 by 275 km, tilted 30.5 degrees to the equator. In our October 8 snapshot the median height of all 11,132 Starlinks was 466 km, about 200 km higher. SpaceX said the new satellites would check themselves out and raise their orbits before serving customers, and our snapshots show them climbing.

Altitude of the 26 Starlink satellites from Starship Flight 14, September 30 to October 10, 2026Average orbital altitude of the 26 Starlink satellites from Starship Flight 14 (international designator 2026-225) in four element sets: September 30 270 km (lowest 267, highest 274), October 5 295 km (286 to 296), October 7 312 km (296 to 316), October 10 316 km (307 to 317).260280300320altitude, kmSeptember 30, 16:00 UTC: average 270 km, lowest 267 km, highest 274 km270Sep 30October 5, 06:00 UTC: average 295 km, lowest 286 km, highest 296 km295Oct 5October 7, 22:00 UTC: average 312 km, lowest 296 km, highest 316 km312Oct 7October 10, 14:00 UTC: average 316 km, lowest 307 km, highest 317 km316Oct 10
Average altitude of the 26 Starlink satellites from Starship Flight 14 in four sets of orbital elements. The dot is the average and the line runs from the lowest satellite to the highest. Altitude is each orbit’s mean height above Earth’s equatorial radius, worked out from its mean motion. Data: CelesTrak, from WatchSat’s catalog snapshots and a CelesTrak query on October 10.
Chart data: Flight 14 Starlink altitudes
Element set (UTC)AverageLowestHighest
September 30, 16:00270 km267 km274 km
October 5, 06:00295 km286 km296 km
October 7, 22:00312 km296 km316 km
October 10, 14:00316 km307 km317 km

Between September 30 and October 10 their average altitude rose from 270 to 316 km. By October 10, 24 of the 26 sat between 315 and 317 km, and the other two were still on their way up. None has come down.

Their 30.5-degree orbit limits where they can rise above the horizon at all. Ars Technica reports that range-safety rules for launches from Starbase put them there. With our tracker's geometry, a satellite at 316 km in that orbit can pass straight overhead anywhere between 30.5 degrees north and south, which takes in Houston, Cairo and Miami. From New York it never climbs more than 10 degrees above the southern horizon. Anywhere north of about 48 degrees, Paris, Vancouver and London included, it never rises.

According to SpaceX, as reported by Ars Technica, each V3 satellite adds 1 Tbps of capacity to the network, about ten times as much as a V2 satellite launched on Falcon 9, and future ships could carry up to 60 at a time. Starship's previous flight, in July, also carried V3s, but it was suborbital and they burned up.

What to watch next

You can follow the 26 satellites on the live globe. Upcoming launches, including Flight 15 once it's set, are on our launch page.

Sources

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