Image source, SpaceX

All 26 Starlink V3 satellites have now been deployed from Starship.

SpaceX says it is shortly going to reach it's initial checkpoint. That’s where the team can check everything and decide whether Starship needs to return early.

If nothing goes wrong, Starship will complete its six orbits as planned and return to Earth in about nine hours.

An orbit takes around 90 minutes.

As we’ve been reporting, one of the six RVac engines shut down unexpectedly earlier, prompting a review of whether Starship should continue with its planned orbital insertion burn.

According to SpaceX's livestream, the RVac engines are not needed for the rest of the journey, but engineers need to review the health of the remaining engines, particularly the three sea-level engines.

The team has examined the indicators for those engines and decided they look healthy.

As a result, they voted for the operation to go ahead as planned.

We are watching Starship spit out 26 Starlink satellites, one by one.

The rocket is now over Madagascar, after passing over the southern tip of South Africa, having been launched from Texas in the US.

If everything goes as planned, the ship will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, west of Chile, in just over nine hours.

Georgina Rannard
Climate and science reporter

The test flight today could be as long as 10 hours as the Starship capsule attempts to loop around Earth six times.

Until now, all Starship flights have been suborbital, meaning the capsules were high enough to reach space, but did not travel fast enough or long enough to complete a loop around the Earth. Most of the previous flights were about one hour.

Today, Starship is travelling at about 275km above Earth in orbit, and the company want to push the craft to its limits. That will involve collecting data throughout the flight and deploying new generation Starlink satellites.

The longer Starship can spend in orbit, the more SpaceX can test the craft and collect valuable information.

The long flight should also allow the company to line the capsule up for a re-entry point near the west coast of Chile, but if required, it could end the flight earlier.

Image source, SpaceX

SpaceX is now undertaking the next phase of today's mission. Starship is starting to deploy its payload - 26 Starlink V3 satellites.

The process is set to last about 30 minutes.

We can now bring you more images, showing the Starship spacecraft launching and it reaching space.

The launch sent a huge plume of smoke into the air, with the rocket splitting in half as planned within minutes of take off.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, SpaceX

Image source, SpaceX

We are now seeing the spaceship enter orbit as the orbital insertion burn begins. It's the first time the rocket has entered Earth's orbit.

It it due to go around Earth six times, and deploy 26 Starlink satellites.

Image source, SpaceX

The SpaceX livestream has just confirmed that Starship will launch into orbit as planned.

It comes after one of the engines unexpectedly shut down and we heard some back and forth over whether they would send it to orbit Earth.

We will bring you further updates soon, and as a reminder, you can watch live above.

Georgina Rannard
Climate and science reporter

Some drama now as SpaceX decide whether or not to push Starship 14 into orbit. After reported issues with one of the craft's six RVacs or engines, the company's engineers need to make that final call in the next few minutes.

It's a big decision because once the Starship goes into Earth's orbit, it's much harder to pull the craft back down to Earth in case of a problem, so the flight becomes more dangerous.

SpaceX want to be sure that it is the right decision to push Starship into orbit, or whether to re-schedule this flight.

SpaceX says the Starship has experienced an engine issue during ascent, after one of the six engines shut down earlier than planned.

The vehicle has reached space successfully, but the team initially decided not to perform the additional burn required for orbital insertion.

The livestream presenter later said they are reassessing the situation, and has not yet completely ruled out an orbital attempt.

Image source, SpaceX

The engine has now been cut off on the Ship, the top part of the rocket that is remaining in flight.

The next stage will be deciding if they will orbit the Earth.

"We're only going to commit to orbit if everything is looking really healthy," the presenter on the SpaceX stream says.

He then says they will not be going into orbit today, but then says they are reassessing this.

The SpaceX livestream says one of the booster’s 33 engines may have shut down. But that doesn't stop Starship from launching.

"Things are going pretty well so far," the narrator says in the livestream as the speed passes 10,000km/h.

At the time of writing, the speed is already over 26,000km/h.

Image source, SpaceX

The Super Heavy booster, which separated from the upper stage about five minutes ago, has now splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico.

There was a large applause from SpaceX as the booster landed in the Gulf.

SpaceX does have the ability to catch it at a landing pad, but has opted not to for today's test.

Image source, SpaceX

We’re now seeing the upper-stage rocket separate from the Super Heavy booster.

The booster is set to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico in about five minutes.

Image source, SpaceX

The Starship rocket has launched, as it heads to Earth's orbit for the first time.

Image source, SpaceX

The counter on the SpaceX livestream suggests the launch time is expected within 10 minutes - you'll be able to watch live on our stream at the top of this page.

Image source, Reuters

The SpaceX communications team say that things are "looking good" for a launch at 07:48 US Central Time (12:48 GMT, 13:48 BST).

Speaking on a live SpaceX broadcast in the run up to the launch, they say they'll only go ahead if everything is looking "healthy on the ship", adding that the team have a saying that "only the paranoid survive".

The launch window will remain open for 75 minutes - it opened at 07:15 local time (13:15 BST).

SpaceX says its teams have begun loading Starship with propellant - as mentioned before they say that's about 12 million lbs (5.4 million kg) of liquid oxygen and liquid methane.

The rocket is being loaded at the Starbase facility in Texas.

So, what components make up the Starship rocket?

The Ship is the uppermost part of the rocket. It sits atop a booster called Super Heavy.

SpaceX aims to make it completely reusable. SpaceX has previously successfully manoeuvred the Super Heavy booster back to the launch pad. It is yet to catch the Ship in the same way.

Today, the Super Heavy won't be caught though, it will instead land in the sea.

The rocket consists of thirty three engines which produce around 74 meganewtons of thrust - almost 700 times as powerful as the thrust generated by the common passenger plane, the Airbus A320neo.

If you’ve flown with Aer Lingus, British Airways or Lufthansa, imagine the kick of taking off in one of those planes. Then multiply that by 700.

It's also about twice as powerful as the Saturn V rocket which first took humanity to the Moon's surface.

SpaceX says that power should be able to move a payload weighing at least 150 tonnes from the launchpad to low-Earth orbit.

SpaceX was founded in 2002 and has developed several vehicles since then, including the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket, which have taken astronauts to the International Space Station.

SpaceX engineering executive Bill Riley describes these and other models as the "building blocks along the way" towards Starship.

It is Starship that SpaceX hopes will ultimately travel to the moon.

But this could take time. In 2016, Musk said he was planning to send his Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018. Eight years have passed since that target.

And recent suborbital missions haven't all been smooth sailing.

There were several Starship incidents in 2025, including an explosion shortly after launch in March which grounded flights and caused debris to rain down over the Bahamas.

In June, the rocket exploded into a gigantic fireball on its test stand.

This was followed by a third failed mission in May, when Starship began spinning out of control minutes after separating from its booster.

Missions since have been more successful, although not without blips entirely.

A flight in May this year saw both stages of the rocket suffering engine failures, despite otherwise achieving most major mission objectives.