SpaceX is gearing up to attempt the first orbital flight of its Starship rocket on Monday morning, with a 75-minute launch window opening at 8:15 a.m. ET from Starbase, its facility in south Texas.

The 14th test flight of the Starship Super Heavy vehicle is a meaningful departure from those that came before it. None of the previous 13 flights were designed to reach orbit. This one is. SpaceX also plans to deploy 26 of its next-generation Starlink V3 satellites during the mission, making it the most commercially consequential Starship test yet.

The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that it issued a licence authorisation for the Starship Super Heavy Flight 14 launch and reentry operations on 26th September, clearing the path for Monday’s attempt.

Starship sits at the core of SpaceX’s growth strategy. The company’s Starlink connectivity business was its largest and only profitable segment as of the second quarter and Starship is the vehicle it is counting on to scale that operation further. SpaceX currently operates around 11,000 active satellites, dwarfing the roughly 650 managed by rival Eutelsat OneWeb.

The V3 satellites being carried on this flight are produced at SpaceX’s facility in Redmond, Washington. They are larger than earlier models and fitted with solar arrays that generate twice the power of previous generations, enabling faster data transmission to Starlink subscribers.

Starship’s ambitions extend well beyond satellite deployment. The rocket is being readied for a major NASA test flight next year and is central to the agency’s plans to return American astronauts to the lunar surface. SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell also indicated recently that the company intends to use Starship to place what she called AI compute satellites into orbit as early as 2027.

The vehicle and its Super Heavy booster are designed to be fully reusable and to lift more payload at a lower cost per kilogram than any rocket currently operating. If Monday’s flight goes to plan, Starship will complete a full orbit of the Earth for the first time.