SpaceX's Starship rocket officially began its latest mission on Friday after lifting off from the Starbase facility in Texas. This flight, the 14th in the vehicle's testing program, is carrying the first 26 Starlink V3 satellites into orbit to increase the total bandwidth capacity of the company's internet constellation by about 3%.

The deployment is intended to provide gigabit speeds by December for seafaring users who own the $2,000 Starlink Performance Gen 3 kit. This upgrade will effectively double data throughput for those maritime customers, following a series of full stack tests and wet dress rehearsals performed earlier in the week.