Starship Flight 15 Ship Catch Is Decided 21 Hours Into Flight
Starship Flight 15 will attempt to catch both halves of the rocket for the first time, targeting Friday 13 November 2026 from Starbase, Texas. The 75-minute window opens at 4:45 p.m. CT, or 22:45 UTC. SpaceX says the ship comes home only if controllers clear it about 21 hours into the flight.
What SpaceX Is Attempting on Flight 15
Flight 15 is the first time SpaceX will try to bring both stages of Starship back to the launch tower on the same mission. If both are caught, it would be the first full recovery of an orbital launch vehicle.
The rocket has two parts. The lower stage is Super Heavy, the booster that lifts the vehicle off the pad; on this flight it is Booster 22. The upper stage is the one SpaceX calls the Ship, which reaches orbit and releases the payload; on this flight it is Ship 42. Both are from the Starship V3 design, the larger version SpaceX introduced in 2026, and this is the fourth pair of V3 hardware to fly.
Super Heavy has been caught by the tower’s two moving arms, nicknamed chopsticks, three times: on Flight 5 on 13 October 2024, Flight 7 on 16 January 2025, and Flight 8 on 6 March 2025. The Ship has never been caught. Every upper stage so far has either been lost or brought down in the sea.
Booster 22 completed a full-duration static fire on 25 October 2026, firing all 33 of its Raptor engines for roughly 15 seconds while held down on the ground.
When Starship Flight 15 Launches
SpaceX is targeting Friday 13 November 2026, and the company has not treated that date as fixed. In a post on 7 November 2026, SpaceX said Flight 15 “is targeting to launch as early as Friday, November 13, pending regulatory approval.”
| Detail | Flight 15 |
|---|---|
| Target date | Friday 13 November 2026, no earlier than |
| Window opens | 4:45 p.m. CT / 5:45 p.m. ET / 22:45 UTC |
| Window length | 75 minutes |
| Launch site | Orbital Launch Pad 2, Starbase, Texas |
| Vehicles | Super Heavy Booster 22, Ship 42 |
| Planned duration | 14 orbits, more than 22 hours |
As of 9 November 2026, the Federal Aviation Administration has not published a licence covering the Flight 15 profile, and SpaceX’s own wording still carries the condition “pending regulatory approval”. The date has already moved: the launch tracking site KeepTrack reports that earlier FAA air traffic planning slides listed no earlier than 8 November, then 12 November, before SpaceX named 13 November.
Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on 20 October 2026 that she expected the licence to cover return to launch site and tower catch for both stages. That was an expectation, not a confirmation, and SpaceX has not since said the licence is in hand.
Why Catching the Ship Is Harder Than Catching the Booster
The Ship arrives from orbit, not from the edge of space, which makes the catch a different problem from the three the booster has already solved. It travels further, re-enters hotter, and has to arrive at a tower in Texas on a schedule set by its own orbit.
| Super Heavy booster catch | Ship catch | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it returns from | Suborbital, shortly after stage separation | Low Earth orbit, after 14 orbits |
| Time in flight before the catch | Minutes | More than 22 hours |
| Re-entry heating | Limited | Full orbital re-entry across the heatshield |
| Times attempted | Caught three times | Never attempted |
| Engines used in the final burn | Subset of 33 Raptors | Three of six Raptors, stepped down to fewer |
The heatshield is the layer of tiles that keeps the Ship from burning up on the way down. According to WFTV, SpaceX made three changes to it after Flight 14: added tile retention in the areas most at risk, sealed pathways where plasma could reach behind the shield, and a curved tile design across much of the surface. SpaceX has not published a full list of the modifications.
The Flight 15 Sequence, Hour by Hour
The mission runs in stages, and each one has to be cleared before the next begins.
- Liftoff: Booster 22 and Ship 42 leave Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase on a trajectory SpaceX describes as passively safe, meaning that if the engines quit the vehicle falls into the sea rather than over land.
- Stage separation and boostback: Super Heavy separates and turns around for the return to Starbase. SpaceX has not published the exact time of the catch attempt; on the three successful booster catches it came about seven minutes after liftoff.
- Orbital insertion: Only if controllers give the go does Ship 42 fire again to put itself into orbit, at roughly 170 miles, or 275 kilometres, above the Earth.
- Payload deployment: The Ship releases 26 Starlink V3 satellites once past that altitude.
- Coast: The Ship spends about 21 hours in orbit, waiting for its path to line up with Starbase. Controllers use the time to check the engines, communications, flight computers, navigation sensors and attitude control.
- The return decision: Controllers either clear the Ship to come back to Starbase or they do not.
- Re-entry and catch: If cleared, the Ship deorbits, crosses northern Mexico and southern Texas, performs the belly-first descent SpaceX calls a bellyflop, then flips upright on three of its six Raptor engines, shuts one down, steers to the tower, and shuts down another as it settles onto two catch fittings below its forward flaps.
Our coverage of Flight 14, which reached orbit on 28 September 2026 and ended earlier than planned, sets out how far the previous attempt got.
The Health Check That Decides Whether the Ship Returns
The catch is not a plan SpaceX is committed to carrying out; it is a decision made roughly a day into the flight. In its mission description, SpaceX says: “Flight controllers will only permit Starship to return to Starbase if the vehicle’s status meets our internally developed, and FAA-approved, conditions for a return to launch site and catch.”
That matters for anyone reading the result on Saturday. Flight 15 can reach orbit, release all 26 satellites, and still end with the Ship in the ocean, because the vehicle failed a check more than 20 hours after a clean launch. That would not be a failure of the launch. It would be the rule working as written.
If the Ship is not cleared, or if re-entry goes wrong, SpaceX has designated ocean areas for it to come down in instead, and the vehicle can be destroyed in the atmosphere rather than allowed to reach land. The company has not published the thresholds the vehicle has to meet, so there is no way for an outside observer to predict the decision in advance.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive, said on the 20 October 2026 earnings call that a successful Ship catch on the first try was “more likely than not”. He gave no figure beyond that on the call.
What Flight 15 Carries
Flight 15 carries 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the same count SpaceX flew on Flight 14. Three of the 26 are fitted with cameras pointed at the Ship’s heatshield, which will record the tiles during flight and send the imagery back to operators.
The satellites are released above about 170 miles and then raise their own orbits using onboard thrusters, entering service some weeks later. SpaceX has said each V3 satellite adds roughly one terabit of network capacity. For context on where that capacity is being pointed, see our report on SpaceX buying low-band spectrum for Starlink Mobile.
What Is Still Unconfirmed
- The licence: No FAA licence covering a tower catch of the Ship has been published as of 9 November 2026.
- The date: 13 November is a target with “no earlier than” attached, and it has already shifted twice in the planning documents.
- Catch timings: SpaceX has not published the mission clock times for either catch attempt.
- The go or no-go thresholds: The conditions the Ship must meet to be cleared for return have not been made public.
- What follows: SpaceX has not said when it would first refly a recovered upper stage, beyond pointing at 2027.
Our earlier piece on how Flight 14 was scheduled without a tower catch at all shows how recently this was off the table.
Starship Flight 15 FAQ
When Is Starship Flight 15 Launching?
SpaceX is targeting Friday 13 November 2026, in a 75-minute window opening at 4:45 p.m. CT, which is 22:45 UTC. The launch is pending regulatory approval, so the date can still move.
Will SpaceX Catch Starship on Flight 15?
It will try, but only if flight controllers clear the vehicle about 21 hours into the mission against conditions SpaceX developed and the FAA approved. If it is not cleared, the Ship comes down at sea instead.
Has SpaceX Ever Caught a Starship Upper Stage Before?
No. SpaceX has caught the Super Heavy booster three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8, but the upper stage has never been caught. Flight 15 would be the first attempt.
What Is Starship Flight 15 Carrying?
It carries 26 Starlink V3 satellites, released above roughly 170 miles. Three of them carry cameras to photograph the Ship’s heatshield during the flight.
What Happens If the Ship Is Not Cleared to Return?
SpaceX brings it down in a designated ocean area instead of at Starbase, and the vehicle can be destroyed in the atmosphere if re-entry goes wrong. The satellites would already have been deployed by that point.
