SpaceX (SPCX, Financials) finally sent Starship into orbit and deployed commercial satellites, but the breakthrough came with a reminder of how much work remains.

One of Starship's three main Raptor engines unexpectedly shut down after the spacecraft separated from its Super Heavy booster during Monday's 14th uncrewed test flight.

Starship still reached orbit and completed its first commercial satellite deployment, but the mission ended several hours earlier than planned.

The immediate question is whether the malfunction was an isolated hardware problem or something that requires broader changes to future Starship vehicles. That matters because Starship is central to more than SpaceX's commercial ambitions.

The company is developing a Starship-based Human Landing System for NASA's Artemis program, while Blue Origin is developing the competing Blue Moon lander. NASA is targeting a return of astronauts to the lunar surface by 2028.

Raptor engines have also encountered issues during earlier Starship testing. An engine failed to ignite as planned during Flight 12 in May, although all engines fired successfully during Flight 13 in July.

Any prolonged setback could also affect SpaceX's plans to use Starship to launch larger payloads and accelerate deployment of its Starlink network. SpaceX shares fell 2.16% Monday to $145.47 before recovering about 1% in Tuesday premarket trading.

For investors, Flight 14 delivered two important signals at once: Starship demonstrated that it can reach orbit and deploy payloads, while the engine failure showed that making those flights reliable and repeatable remains the next major test.