SpaceX Files Starship Flight 14 for First Orbit Starting September 15

SpaceX has asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for backup ship radios on Starship Flight 14 that explicitly cover an orbital second stage from Starbase, Texas, with a requested operating window starting September 15, 2026.

The experimental STA, signed August 21, 2026 by Launch Regulatory Specialist Kristi Key, says the authority is needed for backup frequencies 2228.5 and 2234.5 MHz on the ship “launching from Starbase TX,” and that the application “includes an orbital second stage.” Trajectory data will go to NTIA, USAF, and NASA, with the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation listed as the launch licensing authority. The requested period runs from September 15, 2026 through March 15, 2027.

That orbital line is the news. Every Starship flight so far has flown a suborbital profile that ends with the ship coming home the same day. Flight 14 is the first filing that puts a full orbital insertion on the communications paperwork, matching what Elon Musk told investors on SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call: the next flight would carry next-generation Starlink V3 satellites into an operational orbit rather than a short demo arc.

Hardware is lining up behind the filing. On August 28, SpaceX posted a full-duration 33-engine static fire “with the Super Heavy booster preparing for Flight 14,” two video clips of the plume at Starbase. The ship assigned to the flight had already completed its own full-duration, 60-second six-Raptor static fire on August 21, after SpaceX released the six-engine static-fire clip.

Flight 13 on July 24 already lofted 20 production Starlink V3 satellites and soft-splashed Ship 40 in the Indian Ocean, but those V3s were never meant to join the constellation. Flight 14 is set up to close that gap if the orbital insertion holds, with roughly 20 V3 satellites again on the manifest and each unit rated on the order of 1 terabit per second of downlink in SpaceX’s published V3 specs. Musk later walked the Flight 14 tower catch back to “a few months,” so the ship is again expected to target an Indian Ocean splashdown rather than chopsticks on this attempt.

An STA is radio authority, not a flight license. SpaceX still needs the stack cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly, and Starship dates routinely slip. What the FCC file does lock in is intent: Starbase, an orbital second stage, and a September 15 start on the requested window for the radios that will talk to the ship.