Starship reached Earth orbit and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites on its 15th test flight, but SpaceX failed to recover the Super Heavy booster: a technical problem forced the company to cancel the catch attempt at the launch tower and direct it to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The company still expected to attempt the first catch of the upper stage on Saturday.
The mission began at 17:47 Eastern Time from Starbase on the southern Texas coast. The ship and booster cleared the tower without incident and climbed, propelled by Super Heavy’s 33 Raptor 3 engines, which generated more than 18 million pounds of thrust, according to Space.com.
SpaceX’s goal was to recover both rocket stages, which would have marked a milestone for its reusable system. The first phase of the plan was thwarted shortly after separation: controllers ordered the booster to stop returning to the launch tower and end up at sea. The upper stage, by contrast, continued on its trajectory into space.
A diversion during Super Heavy’s return
Super Heavy shut down its main engines and separated from Starship about two and a half minutes after liftoff, according to Space.com. After turning around, it fired its engines to reverse course and return to Starbase. CBS News places the diversion command just over six minutes after launch; Space.com estimates that the controlled splashdown occurred about six and a half minutes after liftoff.
The specific cause of the change had not been clarified. CBS News reported a technical problem and explained that the flight plan included an alternative splashdown if an issue prevented a safe catch. The booster descended toward the Gulf, where long-range cameras showed it enveloped in vapor before residual propellants burned in a fireball shortly before it hit the water.
SpaceX had already caught a Super Heavy with the tower’s mechanical arms on three previous test flights, according to CBS News. Space.com specifies that those recoveries involved V1 vehicles; two of the three recovered boosters were reused on later flights. Flight 15 would have been the first recovery of a V3 Super Heavy, a variant the company began flying this year.
The planned maneuver called for the booster to return tail-first and slow down using three of its 33 Raptor engines while the tower’s arms caught it. This time, it did not reach that phase. Dan Huot of SpaceX acknowledged during the broadcast that they still did not know why they had been unable to bring it back: “Not sure right now why we weren't able to bring it back”.
Starship reaches orbit and deploys its payload
The failed catch did not prevent the upper stage from continuing the mission. After separation, its engines kept running as Starship climbed; after a glide phase of about 18 minutes, a Raptor fired again to propel the ship toward its planned orbit, according to CBS News. Space.com places orbital insertion at 26 minutes and 10 seconds after liftoff, at an altitude of about 275 kilometers.
“We’ve got a nominal orbit insertion, so Starship now in orbit around Earth for the second time ever. That’s a really great moment.”
— Dan Huot, of SpaceX
It was the second time Starship had reached orbit. The first was on Flight 14, which lifted off on September 28, according to Space.com. On this mission, the upper stage carried 26 V3-version satellites for Starlink, SpaceX’s internet network, and deployed them in low Earth orbit over a 42-minute period that began 35 minutes after launch.
The V3 satellites are an upgraded version of Starlink V2. Space.com notes that the constellation already has more than 11,000 V2 satellites in orbit and that this new batch of V3 satellites will add a terabit of data capacity, according to SpaceX’s mission profile. The publication compares that capacity to what is provided by ten Starlink V2 launches using the Falcon 9 rocket.
Three of the deployed satellites carried cameras to photograph Starship after its ascent and collect data on the heat-shield tiles and other components. The company was to review the data and the condition of the systems before deciding whether to authorize the return to the launch tower. SpaceX said it would attempt the maneuver only if the systems needed for reentry, final braking, and approach to the tower were working correctly.
Reentry planned for Saturday
The mission was designed as an approximately 22-hour test. According to Space.com, Starship was to complete 14 orbits around Earth and spend more than 21 hours in space before returning to Texas. The publication estimated a return to Starbase at 16:17 Eastern Time on Saturday, November 14, about 22 and a half hours after liftoff.
CBS News reported that the ship was to perform a deorbit burn with a Raptor engine at 15:21 Eastern Time to begin a 56-minute reentry. Space.com, meanwhile, placed the deorbit maneuver at approximately T+21 hours and 36 minutes and the start of atmospheric entry about 35 minutes later. Their timing estimates differ slightly; both describe a return planned for Saturday afternoon.
During descent, Starship was to use four control surfaces to adjust its trajectory. SpaceX explained that the ship would pass over sparsely populated areas of northern Mexico and southern Texas, avoid the main cities of the Rio Grande Valley, and pass north of South Padre Island before heading toward the Gulf and Starbase.
As it approached the tower, the upper stage was to fire three engines to position itself vertically. It would then shut one down and descend between the mechanical arms, which would attempt to catch it while the remaining engine reduced its speed. This would be the first catch of a Starship upper stage returning from an orbital mission.
The maneuver had alternatives in case teams detected problems. Space.com identified three in-flight checkpoints to decide whether an early return to the Pacific would be preferable: one ten minutes after the satellite deployment ended, another at T+7 hours and 15 minutes, and a third at T+20 hours and 41 minutes. There was also a contingency splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico for the final descent.
SpaceX described other options for ending the flight safely if reentry or the approach did not allow a catch. These included sending Starship to the Pacific—with planned zones near Hawaii and another several hundred kilometers off Chile—or having it disintegrate in the atmosphere before it could reach land. The catch plan therefore remained contingent on controller checks and the condition of the ship’s systems.
Reusability, Starlink, and the Moon
SpaceX is pursuing a system in which both the booster and the ship can be recovered and flown again. The company believes full reusability would reduce the cost of spaceflight. Today, it relies mainly on its Falcon rockets, which are not fully reusable because their second stage is not recovered, according to DW.
Starship’s track record still reflects this challenge: DW notes that boosters had been recovered on previous flights, but the upper stages of the 14 previous missions had ended up in the ocean, either as planned or because of failures. Flight 15 was the first mission to attempt to recover both stages; the Super Heavy catch was ruled out, and Starship’s catch remained dependent on reentry.
The ability to launch frequently is also tied to the company’s plans to expand Starlink. Space.com attributes to Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, the goal of reaching 10,000 Starship launches a year by 2030. The publication also mentions a next-generation constellation of about 100,000 Starlink satellites and an orbital data-center network that, according to Musk, would be ten times larger.
There is also a lunar commitment. NASA has a Starship variant slated to take Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface in 2028, although rocket development has taken longer than expected. CBS News reports that the agency is keeping open the possibility of using Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 2 lunar lander, depending on which vehicle is ready.
Space.com adds that Starship is scheduled to conduct a demonstration mission with NASA’s Orion spacecraft and the Artemis III astronauts in Earth orbit in the summer of 2027. DW, meanwhile, identifies taking astronauts to the Moon in 2028 as the program’s main goal and says the project has received billions of dollars in NASA funding, while SpaceX has invested at least $15 billion.
The immediate outcome of Flight 15 is mixed: the ship reached orbit and delivered its payload, but the booster did not return to the tower. The next milestone was to see whether Starship could complete reentry and be caught at Starbase on Saturday; the decision depended on the flight team’s checks.
Sources: DW (with Reuters and AP), CBS News, Space
