Starship Flight 15 Ship Catch Next After SpaceX Calls Off Booster Catch

Starship Flight 15 is halfway through its story. SpaceX's giant rocket lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Friday 13 November and put its upper stage, Ship 42, into orbit for only the second time in the program's history. But the first half of the planned double recovery did not happen. SpaceX called off the tower catch of Super Heavy Booster 22 and sent it to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico instead. All eyes now turn to the Starship Flight 15 ship catch, the first time SpaceX will try to pluck the upper stage itself out of the air with the launch tower's mechanical arms.

We set out the mission's goals earlier this week in our Starship Flight 15 dual-catch preview. Here is what actually happened on launch day, what is still to come, and when to watch.

Liftoff, and a booster that went to the sea

Booster 22 and Ship 42 left Orbital Launch Pad 2 at 22:47 UTC on 13 November. That was 5:47 p.m. EST in the United States and 4:17 a.m. IST on 14 November in India. According to Space.com's launch report, the climb was clean. The booster's 33 Raptor 3 engines produced more than 18 million pounds of thrust, and the two stages separated about two and a half minutes into the flight, with Ship lighting its own engines during hot staging.

The booster then flipped around and fired its boostback burn to head home. The plan was for the tower's "chopstick" arms to grab it about six and a half minutes after launch. Instead, SpaceX chose not to try the catch and steered Booster 22 to its backup splashdown zone off the Texas coast. The reason was not explained during the webcast. Reports from the broadcast said 32 of the 33 engines were still running, but it is not known whether that played any part in the decision.

SpaceX has caught Super Heavy boosters on three earlier flights, so one missed catch is not a disaster. It was, however, meant to be the first recovery of a Block 3 (V3) booster, and that milestone now moves to a later flight.

Ship 42 reaches orbit and deploys 26 Starlink satellites

The upper stage had a much better day. Its first engine burn ended just after eight minutes into the flight, and a short second burn of about 20 seconds at T+26 minutes placed it in a low Earth orbit roughly 275 km (170 miles) above the ground. SpaceX commentator Dan Huot summed it up on the live stream: "Starship now in orbit around Earth for the second time ever."

About 35 minutes after launch, Ship began releasing its cargo: 26 Starlink V3 satellites, deployed over roughly 42 minutes. According to SpaceX's Flight 15 mission page, each V3 satellite adds about one terabit per second of capacity to the network. Three of them carry cameras that photograph Ship's heat shield while it is still in orbit. Those pictures help SpaceX decide whether the vehicle is healthy enough to come home to the tower. You can follow the wider constellation on our Starlink tracker, and new objects appear in Recent Launches once public orbital data is available.

When is the Starship Flight 15 ship catch?

Ship 42 is flying about 14 orbits over more than 21 hours. Based on the published flight timeline, these are the key moments, all on Saturday 14 November:

• Deorbit burn: a 10-second engine burn at about T+21 hours 36 minutes, around 20:23 UTC.
• Atmospheric entry: roughly 35 minutes later, close to 20:58 UTC.
• Catch attempt at the tower: about 21:17 to 21:20 UTC. That is around 4:17 p.m. EST on Saturday, or about 2:47 to 2:50 a.m. IST on Sunday 15 November.

The flight has several go/no-go checkpoints along the way, including one about seven hours in and another shortly before the deorbit burn. Controllers will only send the ship to the tower if its reentry and landing systems, and the tower itself, are judged healthy. If anything is wrong, the backup plans are a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico or a return over the Pacific Ocean.

Why catching the ship is so much harder

Catching a booster is difficult, but the booster comes back only a few minutes after launch and from relatively low speed. The ship returns from orbit. It has to survive reentry at orbital speed, protected by thousands of heat-shield tiles. Then it must swing from its belly-first fall to an upright position, relight its engines for a precise landing burn and guide itself to a point right beside the tower. A damaged tile, or a single engine problem during that flip, could force a last-minute diversion to the sea.

The heat shield is the biggest worry. SpaceX says the shield on Flight 15 carries the improvements first flown on Flight 14, which was also the first Starship to reach orbit. The camera-equipped Starlink satellites add a new layer of safety, because engineers can inspect the tiles from the outside before the ship commits to coming home. Before launch, Elon Musk put the odds of success on a first attempt at roughly 50 to 60 percent, so a diversion would not be a shock.

Why it matters beyond Starbase

Full reuse is the whole point of Starship. A rocket whose two stages can both land, be checked over and fly again could cut launch costs far below today's levels and support the very high flight rates SpaceX talks about. It also matters to NASA. A version of Starship is the lunar lander for the Artemis program, and Space.com notes that Starship is lined up for an Artemis III demonstration mission with Orion in summer 2027. Landing on the Moon will also need refuelling in orbit, which means many tanker flights in a short time. That is only practical if ships can be recovered and reflown quickly.

A busy weekend for big rockets

Starship is not the only heavy rocket in the news this weekend. ULA's Vulcan, which was due to carry 40 Amazon Leo satellites on 13 November, slipped by a day after a power interruption at a nitrogen supply plant at Cape Canaveral, Via Satellite reports. The new attempt is set for Saturday 14 November. Our Vulcan return-to-flight preview explains why that mission matters, and the launches this week page shows the latest times for both rockets.

How to follow the catch

SpaceX streams Starship missions live on its website and on X, usually starting shortly before the deorbit burn. In India, set an alarm for about 2:30 a.m. IST on Sunday 15 November. In the United States, the return falls on Saturday afternoon. Times can shift by a few minutes if the trajectory is adjusted, so check our Starship launch tracker and SpaceX launches page for updates. We will report the result as soon as it is confirmed.

Whatever happens tonight, Flight 15 has already delivered a second orbital flight and another full load of Starlink V3 satellites. If Ship 42 ends its journey held by the tower's arms, it will be one of the defining moments of the reusable-rocket era. If it goes into the sea instead, SpaceX will still collect the data it needs to try again.