SpaceX’s large spacecraft Starship will attempt to enter Earth orbit for the first time on its 14th test flight. Previous tests focused on technical validation during launch and flight. This time, the scope expands to putting cargo into actual orbit.

CNBC and other major foreign media reported on Sunday local time that SpaceX plans to conduct Starship’s 14th test flight from Starbase in Texas. The launch window will be open for about 75 minutes from the morning. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approved the launch on Sept. 26 for Starship Super Heavy’s 14th flight and re-entry operations.

The mission plans to put Starship into Earth orbit and deploy 26 new Starlink V3 satellites. The effort is significant because it is the first test to confirm whether Starship can be used for real space infrastructure building, beyond a simple test flight.

Starship is also drawing attention as a transport vehicle to expand Starlink, a core SpaceX business. SpaceX currently operates about 11,000 active satellites in orbit. That is far more than rival Eutelsat OneWeb’s roughly 650 satellites.

Starlink is known as SpaceX’s largest business and its only profitable one as of the second quarter. Elon Musk mentioned during an earnings call in August that Starlink could, over the long term, provide more than half of global internet traffic, centered on countries where the service is allowed.

Turning that vision into reality requires a launch vehicle that can put satellites into orbit quickly and cheaply. That is also why SpaceX is developing Starship as fully reusable. If Super Heavy and Starship can be recovered and reused repeatedly, it becomes possible to carry more cargo per launch and cut launch costs.

The 14th flight is an important step in confirming whether that design can lead to actual missions. If Starship succeeds in reaching orbit and deploying the planned satellites, it would lay the groundwork for future large-scale Starlink satellite launches.

Starship’s potential use is not limited to Starlink. Starship is also expected to be used as a key launch vehicle for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s future lunar exploration plans. SpaceX is pursuing a plan to send U.S. astronauts back to the lunar surface using Starship, and it is also preparing another major test flight scheduled for next year.

A next-generation space computing business is also linked to Starship’s transport capability. Gwynne Shotwell (그윈 샷웰), SpaceX’s chief operating officer, mentioned at the All-In Summit earlier this month a plan to build “supercomputing” in space. She said the company plans to place “AI compute satellites” into orbit in 2027 to perform artificial intelligence computing.

Transporting large satellites and high-power equipment into space requires greater lift capacity than existing launch vehicles. Whether Starship can repeatedly place large payloads into orbit as planned is a key prerequisite for the space computing business.

The Starlink V3 satellites flying on this mission are also central to a next-generation network strategy. The V3 satellites produced at a facility in Redmond, Washington, carry solar panels that can generate twice as much power as the previous generation, and they are also larger. They are designed to provide faster data transmission to subscribers.

With SpaceX’s corporate value estimated at around $2 trillion, Starship’s first attempt at orbital insertion carries meaning beyond a simple rocket test. That is because multiple SpaceX initiatives, from expanding the Starlink satellite network to NASA’s lunar exploration and AI computing satellites, are tied to Starship’s heavy-lift capability.

The focus of this 14th test flight is how close Starship has come to a level where it can carry out real orbital missions. Attention is on whether the first orbital insertion and Starlink V3 deployment can proceed as planned, and whether that could move Starship’s commercial use into a full-fledged stage.