Starship Flight 14 has been pushed back from September 22 to September 28, 2026.
SpaceX did not give a public reason for the delay.
The flight will use Super Heavy Booster 21 and Ship 41.
It is intended to be Starship’s first full orbital mission.
The launch window opens at 8:15 am EDT.
Ship 41 is expected to complete six orbits of Earth before a planned splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, about 10 hours after liftoff.
Unlike some earlier flights, Super Heavy Booster 21 will not attempt a catch at the launch tower; instead it is set to perform a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX said it made unspecified ‘modifications to hardware and software’ to address issues seen on the previous Starship flight.
For the first time on a Starship mission, SpaceX plans to fly two previously recovered heatshield tiles, marking an initial step toward heatshield tile reuse.
Starship launches from Starbase, SpaceX’s private launch site near Boca Chica in South Texas.
Starship is designed to be fully reusable and is central to SpaceX’s plans for satellite deployment, Moon missions under NASA’s Artemis programme, and eventual Mars missions.
The vehicle consists of the Super Heavy booster as the first stage and the Starship upper stage, both powered by SpaceX’s Raptor engines.
SpaceX delayed Starship Flight 14 from September 22 to September 28, 2026, without publicly specifying a reason.
The new launch window opens at 8:15 am EDT (12:15 UTC) on September 28, with a 75-minute window.
Flight 14 will use Super Heavy Booster 21 (B21) and Ship 41 (S41), both part of the newer Starship Block 3 vehicle design.
Booster 21 was rolled out to the launch pad at Starbase, Texas, on the night of September 20 into September 21 in preparation for the flight.
Booster 21 completed a 33-engine static fire test, and Ship 41 completed a 6-engine static fire test ahead of launch.
SpaceX Starship full stack, Starbase, Texas (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
