Elon Musk’s SpaceX announced that its upcoming Starship test flight will include the rocket’s first attempt to deploy payloads in space, releasing 10 model Starlink satellites.
“While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission,” the company stated in a blog post on Friday.
The test flight, planned for later this month, will launch from SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities in Texas. This marks the seventh demonstration of SpaceX’s “test-to-failure” approach, where new upgrades are evaluated with each flight.
In October, Starship achieved a significant milestone when its “Super Heavy” first-stage booster successfully returned to the launch pad’s mechanical arms for the first time, showcasing its fully reusable design. However, the sixth test flight in November faced challenges, as the Super Heavy booster was forced to target a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico due to a launchpad issue, despite achieving other mission objectives.
Starship is pivotal to SpaceX’s ambitions in the satellite launch industry, where it already leads with the partially reusable Falcon 9. The rocket’s immense power, surpassing NASA’s historic Saturn V, will enable the deployment of massive satellite batches into low-Earth orbit, significantly expanding the Starlink satellite internet network.
Additionally, Starship is central to Musk’s vision of Mars colonization and is under a NASA contract to land U.S. astronauts on the moon later this decade. The rocket’s upcoming test flights are expected to demonstrate its capability for both commercial satellite launches and interplanetary missions.
Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, has also aligned closely with President-elect Donald Trump, who has prioritized Mars exploration in his administration’s space agenda.
