SpaceX Reportedly Plans to Deploy First V3 Starlink Satellites With Starship Next Week

TradingKey - SpaceX (SPCX) plans to conduct a critical test flight as early as next week, using Starship to send the first batch of V3 Starlink satellites into orbit. If successful, this test flight will directly determine whether SpaceX can leverage Starship to restart Starlink's expansion pace.

Starlink is currently SpaceX's most reliable revenue source, contributing nearly 55% of the company's revenue in the second quarter. However, to scale this business further, SpaceX needs more than just satellites—it needs payload capacity. Since 2010, Falcon 9 has carried out nearly all of the company's commercial launches, Starlink deployments, and cargo and crew missions to the International Space Station, but its capacity is now stretched thin. SpaceX stated that launching satellites in volume and sending humans and supplies into deep space requires a larger, reusable platform capable of safe, high-frequency flights; Starship will eventually become the company's sole operational rocket, replacing Falcon 9.

Musk predicted that Starship could approach daily launches within a year. The reality is that it has flown only twice this year. SpaceX maintains that a single successful low-Earth orbit test flight is enough to prove that nothing can stop it from repeatedly using Starship to deploy Starlink satellites.

Yet Starship's mission extends far beyond Starlink. In SpaceX's vision, it will eventually support an in-orbit artificial intelligence data center network and send humans to the Moon and Mars. SpaceX believes the AI segment alone represents a $26.5 trillion market. However, refining Starship's deep-space capabilities requires billions of dollars in additional investment and more test flights, with a far more uncertain payback period. Once it passes the low-Earth orbit test flight hurdle, every launch will become a dilemma: expand Starlink, or continue verifying deep-space crewed capabilities?

SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen said at an investor meeting on Thursday that he was excited about the upcoming test flight, "because this will be a revenue-generating flight," and that the company is "entering a production cadence to put production-grade V3 Starlink satellites into orbit."

For SpaceX, Starship is both an amplifier of cash flow and a vehicle for Musk's vision. Whether both paths can succeed simultaneously will face its first major benchmark in next week's test flight.