Starship Flight 15: SpaceX Eyes First Ship Catch on Nov. 13

According to reports in early November, SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13, 2026, for Starship's 15th flight, on which, according to Elon Musk and company president Gwynne Shotwell, the launch tower will for the first time try to catch not just the Super Heavy booster but also the rocket's upper stage, the Starship vehicle itself. Speaking on the company's quarterly call on October 20, Musk said that if the double catch succeeds, it will be the first time an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered, and he called the step a profound technological milestone in the history of civilization. The attempt could come barely a month and a half after Starship reached Earth orbit for the first time on September 28 and deployed Starlink satellites on its first revenue-generating mission. November 13 is only a target date, however, and it depends on regulatory approval, so as of this writing in early November it could still change.

What did Starship achieve on its first orbital flight?

Starship's 14th flight lifted off from Starbase, Texas, at 7:48 a.m. local time on September 28, 2026, and it was the system's first orbital flight, as all earlier tests had flown suborbital trajectories. According to SpaceX's quarterly report, it was also the first revenue-generating Starship mission: the ship carried 26 high-capacity Starlink V3 satellites and deployed all of them within roughly 30 minutes of opening its payload door. The company made contact with every satellite, which matters because earlier V3 deployments took place on suborbital tests, and those satellites burned up in the atmosphere. SpaceX says the 26 V3 satellites added about ten times as much download capacity to the network as a single Falcon 9 Starlink launch. According to SpacePolicyOnline, each V3 satellite offers tenfold download and 22-fold upload capacity compared with the previous V2.

The first orbital trip was not flawless, however. Shortly after liftoff, Super Heavy lost one of its 33 engines, although this did not affect its performance. On the ship, one of the three vacuum-optimized Raptor engines (RVAC) dropped out during ascent, yet the orbital insertion burn still succeeded. Instead of the planned flight of nearly 10 hours and six orbits, the ship splashed down in the northern Pacific Ocean after 3 hours, 8 minutes and 27 seconds; SpaceX had prepared for this contingency as well, but it did not explain the reason for the early return on the day of the flight. According to SpacePolicyOnline, the ship tipped over after splashdown and exploded because of leftover propellant, while the booster did not return to the tower this time and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico instead.

Why would catching the ship be such a milestone?

SpaceX has caught the Super Heavy booster with the launch tower three times so far (on flights 5, 7 and 8, the first in October 2024), but it has never caught the upper stage, the ship. According to NASASpaceFlight and Teslarati, Flight 15 will fly Booster 22 and Ship 42 from the Block 3 generation, and SpaceX would try to catch both at Starbase's Pad 2; NASASpaceFlight notes that this would also be the first catch of a Block 3 booster and the first at Pad 2. Catching the ship is generally considered the harder engineering task, since the upper stage comes back from Earth orbit after enduring the heat load of atmospheric reentry and must then be guided precisely between the tower's arms. What is at stake is full reusability: if both stages return intact and can fly again after a short turnaround, there is no need to build a new rocket for every launch, which could make access to space significantly cheaper. On the call, Musk said he believes success is more likely than failure, but added that success is not guaranteed on the first attempts.

When will Starship Flight 15 launch, and is it licensed?

The biggest question mark is regulatory approval: on the October 20 call, Gwynne Shotwell pointed to significant, constructive discussions with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and said the license for Flight 15 is expected to cover both stages, including the return to the launch site and the tower catch. According to early November reports, however, the FAA's Starship page still did not list a license for Flight 15 as of November 5. NASASpaceFlight reports that the FAA must approve a license modification allowing the ship to return to the Pad 2 tower, because that return involves flying over populated areas. According to Teslarati, bringing the ship back requires a reentry trajectory heading toward land, unlike on any previous flight, and NASASpaceFlight says the working plan calls for a mission of roughly 24 hours so that the ship's orbit lines up with the reentry corridor.

According to an Ars Technica report cited by Teslarati, the November 13 target date was announced by Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX's vice president of launch, at the UP.Summit conference on November 5, and airspace planning (CADENA) also marks that day as the earliest possible date. Earlier planning documents had shown November 8 and then November 12, while Musk, speaking at Giga Texas in October, put the flight shortly before Thanksgiving, which falls on November 26. As of this writing there is no official mission page or exact launch time, SpaceX has not announced a payload, and without an official mission description it is not yet final whether Ship 42 will actually attempt a catch or splash down. Preparations appear to be in the home stretch: according to Teslarati, Booster 22 completed a full-duration static fire of all 33 Raptor engines on October 25, Ship 42 simulated a single-engine deorbit burn on October 26, and on October 27 it fired all six of its engines for 60 seconds. In September, Ship 42 had already been lifted by the tower's arms in a test, a kind of dress rehearsal for the catch.

What could come after Starship's double catch?

SpaceX's next goal is reflight: Shotwell said on the call that the company wants to fly a second stage again by early 2027 and, as it moves toward rapid reusability, would also increase its launch cadence. According to Shotwell, Starlink needs a few hundred V3 satellites before users truly feel the impact, a level she believes could be reached by mid-2027. For the lunar program, it matters that SpaceX holds a NASA contract for the lunar lander version of Starship (HLS), which requires cryogenic refueling in Earth orbit, something the company has yet to demonstrate. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, however, has turned the Artemis III mission into a docking test in Earth orbit with Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon Mk2 lunar lander; it is planned for summer 2027 and does not require in-orbit refueling. The flight targeted for November 13 could therefore also show how close Starship has come to the full and rapid reusability on which SpaceX's further plans are built.