SpaceX Starship Flight 15 Launch Date November 13 Explained: First Ship Catch and Dual Recovery Attempt
UPDATE — 14 November 2026, 3:00 PM IST: Correction — the first Ship tower catch is now expected at about 2:45–2:50 AM IST on Sunday, 15 November (about 3:15–3:20 p.m. CT on Saturday), not 2:15 AM IST as this post earlier said; the mission timeline puts the catch at about T+22 hours 32 minutes after the 4:17 AM IST liftoff. The time is still an estimate, not confirmed: SpaceX has not formally cleared the catch attempt — it says Starship and its heatshield are healthy and teams are monitoring ahead of a planned return-to-launch-site catch, but the Ship must still be cleared for reentry, the landing burn and the tower approach, and it can still be diverted to an ocean splashdown.
Image: Wikimedia Commons / Bech, CC BY 2.0 — A Super Heavy booster being caught by the Mechazilla tower arms on Flight 5. Flight 15 will attempt the same catch with the Ship upper stage for the first time.
UPDATE — 14 November 2026, 5:15 AM IST: Starship Flight 15 has launched. Liftoff was at about 4:47 p.m. CT on Friday, 13 November (5:47 p.m. ET; 4:17 a.m. IST on Saturday, 14 November). The Super Heavy booster catch was aborted during the booster's return — SpaceX waved off the tower catch and the booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico instead; SpaceX has not yet said what caused the abort and says it will investigate. The Ship reached orbit with all six engines and is due to deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites. SpaceX still plans to attempt the first-ever Ship tower catch on Saturday, after about 14 orbits and roughly 22 hours in flight, at about 3:15–3:20 p.m. CT (about 2:45–2:50 a.m. IST on Sunday, 15 November), if the vehicle stays healthy. Sources: Reuters via Channel News Asia, Gizmodo, Investor's Business Daily.
UPDATE — 14 November 2026, 3:30 AM IST: The FAA has granted the launch licence for Starship Flight 15, including authorisation for the return of both the Super Heavy booster and the Ship to Starbase for tower catches. SpaceX is cleared to fly in the 75-minute window opening at 4:45 p.m. CT on Friday, 13 November — 4:15 a.m. IST on Saturday, 14 November. Sources: Scientific American and Teslarati.
UPDATE — 12 November 2026: SpaceX moved Booster 22 to the launch pad at Starbase on 10 November and ran final catch testing, including a suspended squeeze test at catch height. The launch window is unchanged — 4:45 p.m. CT on Friday, 13 November (4:15 a.m. IST on Saturday, 14 November) — and SpaceX's mission page still says the flight is pending regulatory approval. As of 11 November, the FAA licence modification that would authorise the Ship's return to the launch site for a tower catch had still not been publicly issued, according to NASASpaceFlight, Teslarati and The Space Road; the return conditions are FAA-approved, but that is not a final launch licence. Backup airspace coverage runs 14–19 November.
UPDATE — 8 November 2026: SpaceX has now published the official Flight 15 mission page, and several facts in this post have changed. The launch window opens at 4:45 p.m. CT on Friday, 13 November (22:45 UTC; 4:15 a.m. IST on Saturday, 14 November) in a 75-minute window. The payload is 26 Starlink V3 satellites. The booster is due back at about T+6:35 and the Ship at about T+22:32, after roughly 14 orbits at about 275 km over a flight of more than 22 hours. The return conditions are FAA-approved, but the launch itself is still pending regulatory approval. The corrected details are in the sections below.
UPDATE — 13 November 2026, 6:00 PM IST: SpaceX is still targeting Friday, 13 November, for Flight 15, with the launch window opening at 4:45 p.m. CT (22:45 GMT / 4:15 AM IST on Saturday, 14 November) and running for 75 minutes. SpaceX published its official mission page on 7 November, confirming the flight will attempt the first-ever catch of the Starship spacecraft itself on land at Starbase — alongside the Super Heavy booster catch — and will carry a batch of operational Starlink satellites (Starlink Group 31-2). As of Friday morning, however, SpaceX had still not received the FAA launch licence, and backup opportunities run from 14 to 20 November in the same time slot. Sources: Channel News Asia (Reuters), NASASpaceflight.
📌 KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- Target date: Friday, 13 November 2026 (NET — no earlier than), announced by SpaceX VP of Launch Kiko Dontchev at the UP.Summit on 5 November.
- The big first: Flight 15 is planned to catch both stages — Super Heavy booster and Ship — with the tower's chopstick arms. No orbital rocket has ever been fully recovered in one flight.
- The hardware: Booster 22 and Ship 42, both Block 3 vehicles, have finished their static-fire tests. Launch site: Orbital Launch Pad 2, Starbase, Texas.
- The catch: the return conditions are FAA-approved, but the launch itself is still pending regulatory approval.
- Odds: Elon Musk put a successful first ship catch at "more likely than not" — a target, not a guarantee.
- The timeline: window opens 4:45 p.m. CT on 13 November (4:15 a.m. IST, 14 November); booster catch at about T+6:35, Ship catch at about T+22:32 after roughly 14 orbits at about 275 km; 26 Starlink V3 satellites aboard.
What happened?
Until this week, the only public dates for Starship Flight 15 came from FAA air-traffic planning slides, which first listed no earlier than 8 November and later 12 November. That changed on Thursday, 5 November, when SpaceX's vice-president of launch, Kiko Dontchev, told the audience at the UP.Summit that the company is targeting Friday, 13 November. Ars Technica's Eric Berger, who was in the room, reported the date — the first Flight 15 target to come directly from a SpaceX executive rather than a planning document.
A CADENA presentation the same day pointed to the same date, and launch trackers have since moved Flight 15 to 13 November. SpaceX published its mission page on 7 November with a 4:45 p.m. CT window (see the update above). Treat 13 November as a target, not a confirmed launch day — Starship dates slip often, and this one depends on a licence that has not yet been issued.
SpaceX Starship Flight 15 launch date November 13 — the mission at a glance
| Detail | What we know |
|---|---|
| Target launch date | Friday, 13 November 2026 (NET — no earlier than) |
| Vehicles | Booster 22 (Block 3 Super Heavy) + Ship 42 (Block 3 Starship) |
| Launch site | Orbital Launch Pad 2, Starbase, Texas |
| Mission type | Second operational flight; low Earth orbit test flight |
| The headline goal | Catch both the booster and the Ship with the tower arms |
| Payload | 26 Starlink V3 satellites |
| Launch time | 4:45–6:00 p.m. CT, 13 Nov (4:15–5:30 a.m. IST, 14 Nov) |
| FAA licence | Granted 13 Nov 2026 — covers launch and return of both stages |
What Flight 15 will attempt — and why it matters
Flight 15 is the flight where SpaceX's reusability plan either takes its biggest step yet or hits its hardest test. On the company's third-quarter earnings call in October, Elon Musk confirmed the plan: "For Flight 15, which we expect to happen next month, we're going to attempt to catch both the booster and the ship." If both catches work, he said, it would be "the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered" — a milestone he called profound for the technology.
The booster half of the trick is proven. SpaceX has already caught a Super Heavy booster with the tower's arms three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8. The ship half is entirely new. The Ship has to survive re-entry at orbital speed, shed heat through its stainless-steel skin and ceramic tiles, flip from a horizontal "belly flop" descent into a vertical position, and then drop precisely into the arms. Musk put the odds of a successful first ship catch at "more likely than not" — honest odds, not a promise.
The hardware is ready: Booster 22 fired all 33 of its Raptor engines in a full-duration static fire on 25 October, and Ship 42 ran a single-engine deorbit-burn simulation on 26 October plus a 60-second firing of all six engines the next day. Ship 42 had already rehearsed the catch in September, when the Pad 2 arms lifted it into catch position.
Image: Wikimedia Commons / Alexander Hatley, CC BY 2.0 — The Starbase launch tower and its Mechazilla catch arms, which Flight 15 will use to try to recover both stages.
What still has to happen before 13 November
The remaining hurdle is regulatory, and it is not a formality. SpaceX has published the official mission page, and the return conditions for bringing the Ship back to Starbase are FAA-approved — but the launch itself is still pending regulatory approval. The FAA has also issued a NOTAM for 13–20 November covering a possible re-entry and splashdown of the Ship in the Indian Ocean, in case the catch is called off. Every Starship flight so far has ended over open ocean; Flight 15 needs approval for a re-entry path that brings the Ship back toward land at Starbase, flying over northern Mexico.
Flight 14, on 28 September, showed why SpaceX is pushing ahead: it became the first Starship to reach orbit and deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites before splashing down. Flight 15 builds directly on that — the same Block 3 design, the same orbital profile, but with the recovery attempt added. The pipeline behind it is already moving: Flight 16, the first Starship launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, has completed cryo testing of its vehicles.
Why it matters for India readers
Full reusability is the difference between rockets as expensive, disposable machines and rockets as reusable transport — and that difference sets the price of everything that rides on them. If Flight 15 recovers both stages, launch costs fall further, which speeds up the Starlink V3 constellation that Flight 14 started deploying: 11,214 Starlink satellites are already in orbit, with 11,200 working, out of 13,096 launched. A denser, cheaper-to-build constellation matters for India, where satellite broadband is racing terrestrial networks to connect remote areas.
There is a strategic angle too. Starship is NASA's chosen lander for the Artemis III Moon mission, so every recovery milestone feeds directly into the crewed lunar programme — the same reusability goal ISRO is pursuing with its own reusable demonstrator work. When the world's biggest rocket learns to come home in one piece, the whole industry's economics shift, including India's.
Should you care?
FAQs
When is SpaceX Starship Flight 15 launching?
SpaceX is targeting Friday, 13 November 2026, according to vice-president of launch Kiko Dontchev, who shared the date at the UP.Summit on 5 November. It is a NET (no earlier than) target, not a confirmed date. SpaceX's official mission page now gives the window: it opens at 4:45 p.m. CT on Friday, 13 November (4:15 a.m. IST on Saturday, 14 November) and runs 75 minutes. The launch is still pending regulatory approval, so the date can slip.
What is the first ship catch?
It is the first attempt to catch the Starship upper stage — the Ship — with the launch tower's chopstick arms as it returns from orbit. SpaceX has caught the Super Heavy booster three times, but the Ship has never been caught: it comes back faster, from farther away, and must flip from a belly-first descent into a vertical position before the arms can close around it.
Has SpaceX caught a Starship before?
It has caught the Super Heavy booster three times, on Flights 5, 7 and 8. It has never caught the Ship. Flight 15 would be the first attempt to catch both stages on a single flight — and, if it works, the first full recovery of an orbital rocket.
Why does Flight 15 need FAA approval?
Because the Ship would return over land toward Starbase instead of splashing down in the ocean, as every Starship flight has done so far. The return conditions are now FAA-approved, but the launch itself is still pending regulatory approval — the licence has not been issued yet.
Takeaway: Starship Flight 15 now has a real date — Friday, 13 November — and the most ambitious goal SpaceX has ever set for a single flight: bring the whole rocket home. The hardware has passed its tests; the licence has not. SpaceX's mission page is now live with the window and the catch timeline; watch for the FAA licence in the coming days — that is what will tell you whether the 13th holds.
For the other big launch date that slipped this week, read our Blue Origin New Glenn delay to January 2027 explainer — and for the Moon programme this rocket is built to serve, see NASA's December 2026 Moon base launch target. India's own recent orbital milestone is covered in our ISRO NVS-03 launch explainer.
Sources
- SpaceX — Starship Flight 15 (official mission page)
- Starlust — 14 orbits in 22 hours: How SpaceX has planned Starship's Flight 15 (7 November 2026)
- Free Malaysia Today — SpaceX to conduct 15th Starship test launch in mid-November (8 November 2026)
- Teslarati — SpaceX's next Starship flight set to make history on Friday the 13th (5 November 2026)
- Wikipedia — Starship flight 15 (mission table: NET 13 November 2026, Booster 22, Ship 42, Orbital Launch Pad 2)
- Teslanorth — Starship Flight 15 Launch Date Targets Nov. 13 (5 November 2026)
- starlust.org — SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 delayed by a day, now likely to launch on November 13 (6 November 2026)
- SpaceX — Starship (official vehicle page; reusability goal)
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