Elon Musk confirms all 26 starlink V3 satellites deployed and operating nominally in historic starship flight
SpaceX clears a major orbital milestone as next-gen spacecraft demonstrate a tenfold capacity leap during Starship's inaugural payload deployment
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that all 26 next-generation Starlink Version 3 (V3) satellites have been successfully deployed and are operating nominally following a landmark orbital test flight.
Carried out during Starship's latest mission, the milestone marked the heavy-lift vehicle's first-ever operational payload deployment.
The V3 satellites represent a massive evolutionary leap for the network, engineered to deliver roughly 1 Tbps of downlink capacity a tenfold increase over preceding V2 iterations.
Equipped with advanced phased arrays and upgraded modem chips, the new spacecraft are designed to dramatically scale bandwidth and support high-density regional coverage.
Following separation from the Starship upper stage, the spacecraft successfully initiated initial ground contact, unfolded their solar arrays, and began utilizing onboard thrusters to raise their operational orbits.
Industry observers view the successful deployment as a critical proof-of-concept for Starship's commercial utility, transitioning the massive rocket into an active revenue-generating asset.
As SpaceX ramps up manufacturing at its Redmond facility, the successful V3 validation clears the path for the constellation to service millions of additional global users with significantly enhanced speeds.
The launch took place from Texas and the rocket is heading to the Earth’s orbit for the very first time. SpaceX representative Dan Huot verified that out of 33 engines on the Super Heavy booster, only 31 reignited during the initial boost-back burn following stage separation.
According to SpaceX livestream, one of the booster’s 33 engines may have shut down. "Things are going pretty well so far," the narrator says in the livestream as the speed passes 10,000km/h.
Speaking about the landing, the Super Heavy rocket booster just made its splashdown landing off the coast of Starbase. The details regarding landing are still unclear.
The ship, the upper stage of the rocket currently in flight, has successfully cut its engines. Based on this situation, mission control must now determine whether to proceed with an orbital insertion.
