Transport & space · July 2026

Starship deploys working satellites

Starship carries its first real payload: 20 Starlink V3 satellites.

On Flight 13, Starship deployed 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites on a deliberately suborbital trajectory, and they made contact with the constellation. It was the first working payload for the vehicle designed to deploy the next generation of Starlink.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia Source

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Starship V3 debut 2026
Starlink 2019

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Payloads in low Earth orbit Latest: 14.5k objects (2025) Source: Our World in Data

Objects launched into space Latest: 4.51k per year (2025) Source: Our World in Data