SpaceX Targets November 13 for Starship Flight 15, Its First Attempt to Catch Both Stages

SpaceX is targeting November 13 for the launch of Starship Flight 15, a mission that would be the first attempt to recover both the Super Heavy booster and the Ship upper stage. The flight is still pending regulatory approval, according to Engadget.

The launch window is 75 minutes, opening at 5:45 p.m. Eastern Time (22:45 GMT) on November 13. It will open only if approval is granted and the weather is acceptable. SpaceX's Starship vehicle page lists the flight as running from 22:45 GMT on November 13 to 00:00 GMT on November 14, 2026.

The recovery plan has two stages. SpaceX intends to use the launch tower's chopstick arms, a pair of mechanical catch arms on the tower, to capture Super Heavy a few minutes after liftoff. It plans to catch Ship about a day later. The booster catch is not new: SpaceX has previously returned and caught the Super Heavy booster three times. Catching Ship has never been attempted. SpaceX will try that capture only if the vehicle can deorbit at one of several predetermined areas and conditions are optimal, so the Ship catch depends on the flight profile working as planned.

Flight 15 follows Flight 14, Starship's first orbital flight. On that mission the Ship stage spent about two hours in orbit rather than the planned 10 hours, because the trip was cut short. For Flight 15, SpaceX plans for Ship to circle Earth about 14 times over a flight lasting more than 22 hours before deorbiting. A primary objective is to deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites.

SpaceX describes Starship, the spacecraft and Super Heavy booster together, as a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond. The full stack stands 124 m (407 ft) tall with a diameter of 9 m (29.5 ft). The company states it is designed to carry more than 100 metric tonnes to orbit in a fully reusable configuration.

Super Heavy is powered by 33 Raptor engines burning sub-cooled liquid methane and liquid oxygen, meaning the fuel is chilled below its normal boiling point. Thirteen are maneuverable center engines, and 20 sit around the perimeter of the booster's aft end. SpaceX says the booster returns to the launch site to be caught by the tower and is then rapidly reused. The Ship upper stage carries six engines: three Raptors and three Raptor Vacuum engines built for vacuum operation. SpaceX states the Raptor produces twice the thrust of the Falcon 9 Merlin engine.

The broader context here is reuse economics. A caught booster that flies again is a known quantity, backed by three prior catches, much as an airliner that lands and departs the same day is routine once the schedule is proven. A caught Ship would close the loop on the upper stage, the part that carries the payload and crew. That step depends on a deorbit profile and recovery conditions that have not yet been demonstrated on this vehicle class.

In my view, the more useful number to watch on November 13 is not the catch itself but whether Ship reaches its deorbit point on the planned 22-plus-hour profile. That timing determines whether a Ship catch is attempted at all.

For operators and the wider launch industry, the stakes are practical. Recovering both stages, if it works, would change the cost structure of a flight profile that currently depends on hardware being discarded or refurbished. It would also give the Starlink deployment and longer-duration orbital work a clearer path to repetition. None of that is certain on this flight. Approval and the weather window will settle the first question, and the flight data will answer the rest.