SpaceX Will Try to Catch the WHOLE Starship on Flight 15
On its Oct 20 earnings call, SpaceX said Starship Flight 15 (targeting November) will try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage with the tower's chopsticks. FAA license still pending.
Catching a skyscraper-sized booster with giant metal chopsticks was apparently just the warm-up. SpaceX now wants to catch the whole rocket.
During SpaceX’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, October 20, Elon Musk said Starship Flight 15 will try to catch both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage with the launch tower’s arms at Starbase, Texas. SpaceX is targeting November, and Musk has floated “a little before Thanksgiving.”
Why this one is a big deal
Booster catches are, somehow, almost normal now. The ship is the hard part. It comes back from orbital speed, survives reentry, belly-flops through the atmosphere, flips upright at the last second and then has to line up perfectly with the tower.
If both catches work, Musk says it’ll be the first time an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered. His odds: success is “more likely than not.” He also pointed out that SpaceX is “hardware rich,” which is rocket-speak for “we’ve got spares if this gets spicy.”
SpaceX even showed an ~80-second animation of the ship catch on the call, under an “Up Next: Ship Catch” banner. Subtle.
The fine print: the FAA
There’s one big asterisk. To be caught, the ship has to fly back over land (including northern Mexico) to reach the launch site. That needs regulators to sign off.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company has had “significant constructive engagement with the FAA” and expects the Flight 15 license to include return-to-launch-site and tower catch for both stages. As of this week, though, that license hasn’t been issued yet. So: planned, not guaranteed.
What comes after
- Early 2027: SpaceX wants to refly a Starship upper stage for the first time.
- Also 2027: the long-awaited ship-to-ship propellant transfer test. NASA needs that for Artemis Moon landings.
- Launch cadence: Musk says Starship could fly weekly in the first half of 2027 and twice a week later in the year. That’s Musk-time, so pack a snack.
The whole point is cheap, rapid reuse. Land it, catch it, refuel it, fly it again, like an airliner. Flight 14 went well enough (despite a few Raptor engine gremlins) that SpaceX thinks it’s ready to try.
Bottom line
Flight 15 could be the moment Starship goes from “very impressive test program” to “the first fully reusable orbital rocket.” It could also be a very expensive fireworks show. Either way, I’m watching.
Would you stay up for the double catch live, or wait for the replay?
Sources: Ars Technica, “SpaceX to attempt Starship catch on next flight, with eye on rapid cadence increase” (Oct 21, 2026); SpaceNews, “SpaceX plans Starship upper stage catch on next launch” (Oct 20, 2026). Video photos: Steve Jurvetson (CC BY 2.0) and NASA/Don Pettit (public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.