SpaceX says Starship is finally attempting a full trip around the planet, targeting September 28 for its first orbital flight.
The company has set that date for Starship's 14th test flight, and the plan looks different from every flight before it. Rather than a suborbital hop, this attempt calls for Starship to orbit Earth multiple times over roughly 10 hours before coming back down. As with most SpaceX target dates, treat September 28 as an aspiration, not a promise - weather, regulatory approval, or a scrubbed countdown can all push it back.
An actual orbital flight is the milestone that turns Starship from a test article into a working spacecraft. NASA's Artemis lunar lander plans and SpaceX's broader Starlink and deep-space ambitions all assume Starship can reach orbit and function there for hours, not just minutes. Ten hours aloft also means SpaceX has to prove out systems - navigation, thermal control, reentry - that a quick suborbital arc never really tests.
Thirteen flights in, SpaceX has gotten good at making hardware failures look like planned learning experiences. An orbital attempt raises the stakes: there's less room to wave away a bad day as "data."