SpaceX is Finally on the Edge of Starship's First Orbital Launch Attempt
SpaceX is Finally on the Edge of Starship's First Orbital Launch Attempt
===
#alphatech
#techalpha
#spacex
#elonmusk
===
SpaceX is Finally on the Edge of Starship's First Orbital Launch Attempt
It’s not just us, the entire world is now watching Starbase!
This is where SpaceX is preparing for a historic leap: sending Starship into a true orbital flight for the very first time, potentially with Flight 13.
And this isn’t just speculation. Elon Musk has hinted at this goal multiple times. More importantly, Flight 12 is expected to lay the final groundwork for that orbital push, with several critical tests that SpaceX has never fully detailed in public.
So the big question is: Will Flight 13 actually make history, or are there still massive challenges standing in the way?
Let’s break it all down in today’s episode of Alpha Tech.
SpaceX is Finally on the Edge of Starship's First Orbital Launch Attempt
So far, Starship has already flown 11 times, yet not a single flight has seen the upper stage fully reach orbit.
Meanwhile, Blue Origin’s New Glenn has only flown twice. To be fair, its upper stage reached orbit on the very first flight. And on the second mission, it not only successfully deployed NASA satellites, but also pulled off a clean booster landing on a droneship.
A lot of people love to cling to this comparison and use it as a weapon against SpaceX, to criticize it, to mock it, to talk it down. But ironically, those attacks often end up highlighting SpaceX’s achievements even more.
First of all, New Glenn’s upper stage isn’t a spacecraft. It’s simply a vacuum-optimized second stage, similar to Falcon 9’s second stage or any traditional rocket, expendable, used once, and done. Starship’s upper stage, on the other hand, is a massive vehicle: 9 meters in diameter, over 50 meters long, designed to do far more than just deploy satellites, and crucially, it’s built to be reusable.
SpaceX is Finally on the Edge of Starship's First Orbital Launch Attempt.
And as for the New Glenn booster? Sure, it has landed on a droneship, once. That’s something Falcon 9 has been doing weekly, sometimes even daily. Meanwhile, SpaceX’s Super Heavy has already landed three times on Mechazilla, something no one else on Earth has ever done.
Yes, Starship hasn’t reached orbit yet, because SpaceX’s engineers designed it from the ground up, not by copying or adapting traditional launch vehicle designs that already existed.
And just look at the progression, flight by flight, from ITF-1 all the way to ITF-11.
===
Subcribe Alpha Tech: https://www.youtube.com/@alphatech4966/?sub_confirmation=1
===