Drew W Edwards

Last night, before I slept, I told my @bot to go through the raw footage of every Starship launch, from Flight 1 all the way to Flight 14, using only official SpaceX footage bc I wanted it to put together the best moments from each flight, in order, so I could actually see how far this rocket has come. I woke up to an 11-minute video. I pressed play and watched the entire thing. And I have to say, watching all 14 flights back to back gave me an even greater appreciation for Elon and the SpaceX team. You can see the progress with your own eyes on both the things that went right and also went wrong. Every explosion, every failed landing, every lost ship taught them something. And instead of backing down, they kept building, fixing, testing, and flying. I remember A LOT of people wrote Starship off after Flight 1. Then they did it again after Flights 7 and 8, when two ships blew up on back-to-back missions. SpaceX never quit. I really believe Starship is one of the most incredible engineering stories of our lifetime. 1/ April 20, 2023 — Flight 1 The first time the fully stacked Starship ever left the ground. Engines were failing, the booster never separated from the ship, and the launch destroyed much of the pad. The rocket made it roughly 24 miles into the sky before breaking apart. I still remember people acting like the entire Starship program was finished that day. SpaceX went back, rebuilt the launch pad, fixed what went wrong, and prepared to fly again. 2/ November 18, 2023 — Flight 2 Just seven months later, all 33 booster engines fired successfully. SpaceX pulled off hot staging for the first time, separating the two stages while engines were firing and Starship reached space. They still lost both stages, but compare this to Flight 1. It was already a completely different outcome. 3/ March 14, 2024 — Flight 3 For the first time, Starship made it far enough to attempt reentry from space. SpaceX also opened the payload door in space, an important step toward deploying satellites. The booster broke apart during its landing attempt in the Gulf, and the ship was lost during reentry. But they were now testing things they couldn't even reach on the first two flights. 4/ June 6, 2024 — Flight 4 The booster made a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, Starship came screaming back through the atmosphere with one of its flaps badly damaged and burning. I remember watching that flap practically fall apart on the livestream. Somehow, the ship kept flying, maintained control, and made it all the way to the ocean. That was unbelievable to watch. 5/ October 13, 2024 — Flight 5 The first ever Super Heavy booster catch. I don't think people fully appreciate what happened here. SpaceX launched a massive rocket, brought the booster back to the launch site, and caught it in midair using two giant mechanical arms attached to the launch tower. Nobody had EVER done anything like that with a rocket booster before... something that sounded impossible had just become real. 6/ November 19, 2024 — Flight 6 SpaceX called off the planned booster catch bc of a problem at the tower, so the booster made a controlled splashdown instead. But the ship achieved another huge milestone. It restarted a Raptor engine in space for the first time. That's an important capability for controlled orbital operations and eventually returning from orbit. The ship also survived reentry and splashed down in daylight. And they even had a banana inside the ship to show when it reached zero gravity. 7/ January 16, 2025 — Flight 7 A new generation of Starship made its debut. SpaceX successfully caught the booster for the second time. Then things went wrong... the ship lost engines and broke apart over the Caribbean. It was a major setback, especially after the progress made on earlier flights, but the team didn't hide from what happened. They showed it, studied it, and went back to work. 8/ March 6, 2025 — Flight 8 Another successful booster catch, the third one. Then the ship suffered engine failures and was lost over the Caribbean again. Two Starships destroyed on consecutive flights. The criticism was everywhere, and plenty of people were convinced the program was going backward. This is where I think the SpaceX team deserves enormous respect. They had already proven the booster could be caught. Now they had to figure out what was happening to the ship. They didn't give up. 9/ May 27, 2025 — Flight 9 For the first time, SpaceX launched a Super Heavy booster that had already flown. This was the same booster caught during Flight 7, and 29 of its 33 engines had previously flown. Pretty cool to know that an enormous rocket booster was being reused. The booster broke apart during its landing attempt though. The ship reached engine cutoff, but a leak caused it to lose control, preventing the planned satellite deployment. Another difficult flight with another set of lessons. But on the positive side, reusable Starship hardware had officially flown again. 10/ August 26, 2025 — Flight 10 After losing three ships in a row, SpaceX finally completed another Starship flight. And this one was a big deal. For the first time, Starship deployed a payload... eight Starlink satellite simulators, released one after another. The ship also restarted an engine in space, survived reentry, and reached its planned splashdown area. It eventually tipped over and caught fire after reaching the water. The booster also made it to the Gulf, although it was destroyed on impact. No catch was planned. Still, after everything that had happened on Flights 7, 8, and 9, seeing that ship make it through the mission was awesome. 11/ October 13, 2025 — Flight 11 Exactly one year after the first booster catch. This was the final flight of that Starship version. SpaceX deployed more satellite simulators and brought both stages back to controlled ocean splashdowns. What stood out to me was how much more complete these flights were becoming... the team was finally putting together the things it had spent the previous two years learning. 12/ May 22, 2026 — Flight 12 The first flight of Starship V3, launching from the new pad. A new version of the rocket meant another round of testing, with new hardware and new challenges. The booster didn't survive its landing attempt, but the ship successfully deployed its test satellites and made it through to splashdown. That's the thing about developing something this complicated. Even when you solve one problem, the next version can introduce brand new ones. The SpaceX team kept learning. 13/ July 24, 2026 — Flight 13 Starship deployed 20 real next-generation Starlink V3 satellites for the first time, on a trajectory designed to bring them back down. And the splashdown was incredible. The ship descended so gently that it stayed in one piece, floated on the water, and continued communicating with SpaceX. The booster didn't make it through its landing burn, but the ship showed just how far its reentry and landing control had come. 14/ September 28, 2026 — Flight 14 And then came orbit. After 13 test flights, Starship finally achieved orbital insertion. SpaceX deployed 26 REAL Starlink V3 satellites, and this time they stayed in orbit. Elon later confirmed that all 26 were working. The ship experienced an early engine shutdown, so SpaceX adjusted the mission. Instead of flying the planned roughly 10 hours and six orbits, they brought it down after a little over three hours, splashing down north of Hawaii. The booster made its planned splashdown in the Gulf. There was no catch attempt on this mission. What mattered most here was that SpaceX put real next-generation Starlink satellites into orbit, satellites that are too large for Falcon 9 to launch in their current form. This was a MASSIVE step toward what Starship was built to do. But really... think about the difference. On April 20, 2023, Starship makes it 24 miles high, fails to separate, breaks apart, and leaves the launch pad badly damaged. And then, three and a half years later, going through 13 flights, countless hours of engineering, rebuilding, testing, fixing things that failed, and trying again... On September 28, 2026, the 14th flight, Starship reaches orbit and deploys 26 next-generation operating Starlink satellites. These were all successful flights followed by failures. There were historic booster catches followed by ships exploding. There were moments when it looked like SpaceX had solved something, only for an entirely new problem to show up on the next flight. But every time... Elon and the team came back. That's what makes this video so powerful to me. We're watching what happens when thousands of incredibly talented people refuse to quit on something they believe is possible. Then on Friday, Elon said he now believes SpaceX becoming worth more than $1,000 trillion is a possible outcome. FYI, he didn't believe that before. For perspective, $SPCX is worth roughly $2.2 trillion today... to even have a chance of getting anywhere near that level, Starship needs to become far more than a rocket that occasionally reaches orbit. It needs to launch massive payloads reliably, become rapidly reusable, dramatically lower the cost of reaching space, and open up opportunities that simply aren't possible with today's rockets. That includes deploying much larger Starlink satellites, building infrastructure in orbit, and eventually making human missions to the Moon and Mars possible on an entirely different scale. And that's why the progress across these 14 flights matters so much. I don't think most people appreciate how difficult it is to build something like Starship. Or how many things have to go right, one after another, to turn a rocket this ambitious into something that flies routinely. We're still very early... there's a lot left to prove. But look at what this team has already accomplished. I've followed SpaceX for years, and watching these 11 minutes made me appreciate the people behind these launches even more. The engineers, technicians, launch crews, and everyone working behind the scenes to make the next flight better than the last. They deserve an enormous amount of credit. If you only watch Flight 14, you'll see an incredible rocket... but if you start with Flight 1 and watch everything that happened along the way, you'll understand why I have so much faith in this team. A lot of people have doubted them over the years. Every time something explodes, those people came back. And every time, SpaceX got back to work to prove them wrong. Never bet against Elon and the SpaceX team... I believe they are going to make the vehicle that this entire company's future depends on - Starship - successful.