SpaceX Starship Flight 14 live updates: Pre-launch wet dress rehearsal underway

2026-09-24T13:52:30.915Z

Starship Flight 14 wet dress rehearsal happening now

A towering SpaceX Starship rocket stands at Starbase's Pad 2, silhouetted against a dark blue sky and yellow rays from a rising sun. — Starship stands at Starbase's Pad 2 ahead of a wet dress rehearsal on Sept. 24. (Image credit: SpaceX)

A towering SpaceX Starship rocket stands at Starbase's Pad 2 against a rich, cloudy blue sky. — Image credit: SpaceX

A towering SpaceX Starship rocket stands at Starbase's Pad 2, silhouetted against a yellow sky and rising sun. — Image credit: SpaceX

A towering SpaceX Starship rocket stands at Starbase's Pad 2, bathed in chrome against a dusk/dawn blue sky. — Image credit: SpaceX

The sun has risen on SpaceX's towering Starship ahead of the rocket's Flight 14 launch and first attempt to reach orbit. The company completed stacking of Starship's Booster 21 and Ship 41 yesterday (Sept. 23), and is preparing to complete a series of tests and simulated launch run-through known as a wet dress rehearsal.

"Sunrise at Starbase," SpaceX said in a post on X. "Opportunistic full stack testing is planned ahead of Flight 14's launch, which is on track for Monday, Sept. 28, pending regulatory approval."

Monday's 75-minute launch window opens at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1215 GMT). Instead of the aproximately one-hour mission durations of Starship's previous suborbital launches, Flight 14's orbital jaunt, if everything goes according to plan, is expected to last nearly 10 hours.

Today's wet dress rehearsal, which involves fully fueling Starship on the launch pad for a full countdown simulation run, is expected to wrap up later this morning.

SpaceX stacks massive Starship rocket ahead of 1st orbital launch attempt (video)

Sunrise at Starbase. Opportunistic full stack testing is planned ahead of Flight 14's launch, which is on track for Monday, Sept. 28, pending regulatory approval pic.twitter.com/VnwI5v4eXQSeptember 23, 2026

Josh Dinner

2026-09-22T20:12:51.423Z

Starship is stacked on the pad at Starbase

SpaceX rolls a Super Heavy booster out to the pad ahead of Starship's 14th flight test, which is targeted for Sept. 28, 2026. SpaceX posted this photo on X on Sept. 21. (Image credit: SpaceX)

We are just under one week away from the next launch of SpaceX's giant Starship rocket. The company is targeting a 75-minute window that opens at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1215 GMT) on Tuesday, Sept. 28, for liftoff of Starship's Flight 14 test launch, and the vehicle's first attempt to reach orbit.

SpaceX rolled the mission's Super Heavy booster (Booster 21) to Pad 2 at the company's Starbase, Texas, facility earlier this week, where its Ship upper stage (Ship 41) was delivered also last night.

The two stage are now stacked, according to NASA Spaceflight, ahead of a wet dress rehearsal (WDR) expected to take place on Thursday (Sept. 24). SpaceX announced Flight 14's Sept. 28 target last week, though the mission has yet to receive regulatory approval for launch.

Flight 14 is poised to be Starship's first time in orbit, and expected to last much longer than previous flights — about nine hours longer than the spacecraft's previous one-hour suborbital hops. Booster 21 and Ship 41 are both slated for soft splashdowns at sea; Super Heavy, following stage separation, and Ship following approximately six complete orbits, according to SpaceX's Flight 14 mission page.