SpaceX's Starship megarocket will attempt to go orbital for the first time ever on Monday morning (Sept. 28) from its Starbase site in South Texas during a 75-minute window opening at 8:15 a.m. EDT. Starship stands 407 feet (124 meters) tall when fully stacked, making it the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built. The flight will send the 171-foot-tall (52 m) Ship upper-stage to Earth orbit to deploy 26 next-gen Starlink Version 3 satellites, the first of a planned megaconstellation of 100,000 spacecraft.

Ship will circle Earth six times before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off Chile nearly 10 hours after launch, while the Super Heavy booster splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico about seven minutes after liftoff. SpaceX has previously caught Super Heavy boosters using the launch tower's 'chopstick' arms three times but has not yet attempted this with Ship. The mission marks Starship's 14th test flight, following 13 prior suborbital tests since its debut in April 2023.

Elon Musk has said Starship will enable settlement of the moon and Mars, and NASA has selected Ship as the crewed lunar lander for Artemis IV, targeting a 2028 moon landing.