Sept 15 (Reuters) – SpaceX said on Tuesday it was preparing to launch its next ‌Starship flight test as soon as ‌September 22, a mission expected to send the vehicle ​into orbit for the first time and deploy Starlink V3 satellites.

Starship’s 14th test flight would mark a major leap in the rocket’s development ‌over its last ⁠test in July, which flew a suborbital trajectory that took the spacecraft ⁠into space before returning it to Earth without completing an orbit.

The company plans to place ​Starship into ​orbit around Earth, ​a milestone that would ‌allow it to test the vehicle over a longer-duration flight and deploy the first batch of Starlink V3 satellites.

The mission, pending regulatory approval, is expected to last nearly 10 hours, ‌with Starship flying about ​275 km above Earth and ​completing about ​six orbits before splashing down in ‌the Pacific Ocean west of ​Chile.

SpaceX plans ​to test the booster’s launch, separation, boostback and splashdown procedures, advancing the company toward ​its goal ‌of a fully reusable orbital launch system.

(Reporting ​by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; ​Editing by Tasim Zahid)