spacetoday.net: SpaceX to start launching satellites on next Starship launch

Posted: Sun, Aug 9, 2026, 10:31 AM ET (1431 GMT)
Starship Flight 12 liftoff (SpaceX)

SpaceX plans to begin deploying payloads in orbit on its next Starship flight. The company announced during its earnings call Tuesday that Flight 14, the next Starship mission, will deploy Starlink V3 satellites into operational orbits. All Starship test flights to date have been suborbital missions, including Flight 13 last month that deployed Starlink V3 satellites for brief in-space tests before the satellites reentered. Flight 14 is tentatively scheduled for the end of this month. SpaceX also intends to recover the Starship upper stage on that flight back at the launch site with a tower catch, pending regulatory approval. In the earnings call, the first since the company went public in June, SpaceX reported a net loss of $541 million on revenue of $7.8 billion in the second quarter. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made bold predictions about the company's growth in the call, including that it would reach $1 trillion in annual revenue in 2030, but SpaceX shares fell in after-hours trading because of concerns about current AI spending.