SpaceX's Starship rocket is about to launch. The 14th test flight for the huge, fully reusable rocket is a reminder of Elon Musk's ambitions.

The launch window opened at 8:15 a.m. Eastern time, and investors can watch it here.

If all goes as planned, it will be the first time Starship goes into orbit around the Earth. Prior tests were suborbital, which means the ship never gets to the speed required to, well, not fall back to the ground.

Along with circling the Earth several times over almost 10 yours, test 14 will deploy working version three Starlink satellites. The larger V3 satellites are more capable and need the larger Starship to enter service. V3 satellites will help SpaceX expand its Starlink space-based broadband business into mobile wireless communications. Today, Starlink has more than 11,000 satellites serving more than 12 million customers.

Starship test flight number 13, which launched in July, was largely a success, with Starship deploying some V3 test satellites.

SpaceX already dominates the global launch business, handling a majority of the globe's space launch business. SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket 165 times in 2025. It should launch a similar number of times in 2026.

That impressive scale still belies what SpaceX is after in the long run. "Starship is two to three years away from hourly flights," tweeted CEO Elon Musk on Sunday.

SpaceX plans to launch Starship a lot, often carrying Starmind AI computing satellites. Musk's rocket and AI company plans to build a massive AI data center in orbit, using the power of the sun and vacuum of space to overcome power, cooling, and political bottlenecks to AI growth.

Hourly flights with a fully reusable rockets would give SpaceX a cost advantage over terresterial data centers and the ability to scale any space-based busineses much faster than anyone on earth.

Its hard to fathom just what hourly flights of a huge rocket would mean for SpaceX, AI, and the telecom business. SpaceX, and Musk, have never lacked for ambition.

SpaceX stock was rising 0.8% at $149.84, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.6% and 0.5%, respectively.