South Africa

Pretoria, September 29, 2026. For the South African press, the fourteenth test flight of Starship is as much a technical feat as a promise of revenue. On Monday, September 28, the giant SpaceX rocket took off from Starbase, Texas, and reached orbit for the first time in its history, carrying 26 new-generation Starlink satellites, the V3, intended to join the network of more than 11,000 devices already in service.

The flight was not without a hitch. After takeoff, one of the three main engines of the upper stage shut down earlier than expected. SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot initially announced live: "The team has made the call not to commit to orbit" - the team gave up on reaching orbit. A few minutes later, a reversal: the engineers confirmed that a second combustion allowed them to reach orbit despite everything. "Starship is orbital," a member of the control team exclaimed, to applause, before the deployment, satellite by satellite, at an altitude of approximately 269 kilometers.

The financial publication Moneyweb emphasizes the commercial dimension of the mission. SpaceX's financial director, Bret Johnsen, described it as a "revenue-generating flight" - the V3 satellites being production-quality and intended to integrate permanently into the network. Moneyweb reports that SpaceX expects "a very rapid increase in revenue" related to Starlink communications thanks to these new devices.

Business Day and TimesLIVE, which reproduce the same agency account signed by Joey Roulette, place the event in the trajectory of SpaceX towards routine operation of Starship by the end of the year, with regular use for Starlink launches and, ultimately, NASA's lunar missions. The Citizen recalls that previous tests, conducted on more cautious suborbital trajectories, had ended in spectacular explosions, including over the Caribbean - which, according to the publication, gives full relief to this first orbital flight.

SABC News had presented, before the flight, this fourteenth test as a potentially pivotal moment, where Starship was to move from an experimental status to that of an operational and reusable vehicle, capable of carrying satellites, lunar missions, and, one day, a flight to Mars.