Circling the globe once every 90 minutes at orbital velocity, SpaceX’s massive Starship spacecraft is currently powering through an extended multi-hour endurance test in low Earth orbit following its successful liftoff from Starbase, Texas.
White posting on X ( formally Twitter) Elon Musk expressed:
As reported this has been on full display with SpaceX’s milestone Starship Flight 15 mission.
After successfully achieving orbit, the Starship upper stage (Ship 42) settled into its multi-hour orbital profile roughly 275 kilometers above Earth to carry out an extended endurance test and deploy a batch of next-generation Starlink V3 satellites.
Instead of a quick suborbital hop, missions like this put Starship on a trajectory where it continuously laps the planet every hour and a half as it prepares for its eventual controlled re-entry and landing sequence.
Starship and its heatshield are healthy as the vehicle continues to orbit Earth after a spectacular start to its mission nearly 7 hours ago.
Teams are continuing to monitor systems ahead of a planned return to launch site catch at Starbase ~22.5 hours after launch
