How Starship Reached Orbit With an Engine Out

Business Onion · Part 4 - To Orbit · 2:58

On September 28, 2026, about eleven minutes into Starship's fourteenth flight, SpaceX's broadcast said the ship would not go to orbit. About ten minutes later: "We are go for orbit." The final part of BUILDING STARSHIP: why every earlier flight stayed short of orbit on purpose, the hard 2025 that came first, and the flight that put Starship and its first real cargo into orbit. Numbers & sources: SpaceX says its first 13 flight tests "intentionally placed the upper stage on a passively safe suborbital trajectory" (September 15, 2026). A first-design ship relit a Raptor in space on Flight 6 (November 19, 2024). The second-generation ship was lost on Flights 7, 8 and 9 (January–May 2025), each from a different cause per SpaceX's reports; Flight 7's was a vibration "several times stronger in flight than had been seen during testing." Musk's "Today was a minor setback. Progress is measured by time." is his X post of March 6, 2025. Flight 10 (August 26, 2025) deployed eight Starlink simulators, relit an engine in space and made a soft splashdown; SpaceX: "Every major objective was met." On Flight 14 (7:48 a.m. CT, September 28, 2026) one of the ship's six engines, a Raptor vacuum engine, shut down early on ascent; controllers judged the three sea-level engines healthy and gave a "go" for orbit; the ship "entered into orbit around Earth for the first time" and deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites, all contacted (SpaceX says they must finish checkouts and raise their orbits before serving customers). SpaceX cut the flight to about three hours from a planned ten "out of an abundance of caution," made Starship's first deorbit burn and splashed down on target in the northern Pacific; the ship then tipped over and exploded, as reported by Spaceflight Now and SpacePolicyOnline. The booster made a controlled Gulf splashdown; no catch was planned. As of October 2026 no ship has been caught or reflown, no V3 booster has been caught, and SpaceX's prospectus says in-orbit refueling has "not yet" been demonstrated or attempted. The broadcast quotes are as reported by Astronomy.com. Sources: SpaceX flight pages for Flights 6–14 and its "Starship to Orbit" update; SpaceX prospectus (June 2026); Elon Musk on X; Astronomy.com, Spaceflight Now and SpacePolicyOnline (September 28, 2026). Some scenes are cinematic reconstructions of documented events. All quotes, dates, and figures are verified.