SpaceX launches 15th Starship flight, aborts booster recovery

SpaceX launched the 15th test flight of its Starship spacecraft from Texas on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026, according to NBC News and Space.com.

Launch and booster recovery

Flight 15 lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas at 5:47 p.m. ET, Space.com reported. The combined vehicle, consisting of the main Starship cargo-and-crew vessel perched atop its Super Heavy booster rocket and standing 40 stories high, roared off its launch pad from SpaceX's South Texas Starbase complex along the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville, NBC News reported.

SpaceX planned to use a "chopstick"-arm technology to recover Starship's lower-stage booster rocket shortly after the two parts of the spacecraft separate within minutes of the launch, NBC News reported. That maneuver was aborted shortly after the launch, according to a video livestream provided by the company, NBC News reported. It wasn't immediately clear why that process was not completed. The booster splashed down in the ocean Gulf of Mexico instead, NBC News reported. Space.com said the company called off the catch attempt and brought the booster down for a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about 6.5 minutes after launch, for reasons that were not immediately clear.

Upper stage in orbit

The flight continued nominally through its initial ascent, with the successful execution of Super Heavy's main engine cutoff and Ship's subsequent hot-staging about 2.5 minutes after launch, Space.com reported. Ship's Raptors continued to fire following stage separation, completing their first burn just after eight minutes into flight, Space.com reported. A second engine burn lasting about 20 seconds parked Ship in low Earth orbit at an altitude of around 170 miles (275 kilometers) at T+26 minutes and 10 seconds, Space.com reported.

"We’ve got a nominal orbit insertion, so Starship now in orbit around Earth for the second time ever," SpaceX's Dan Huot said during today's Flight 15 launch webcast, Space.com reported.

Ship is carrying 26 of SpaceX's Starlink V3 spacecraft, which will be deployed into LEO today over a 42-minute span starting 35 minutes after launch, if all goes to plan, Space.com reported. The upgraded wireless internet satellites will be the second V3 batch to reach orbit, after a set of 26 that were delivered on Flight 14, Space.com reported.

Planned upper stage return

Ship is scheduled to circle Earth 14 times, spending more than 21 hours in space before coming home, Space.com reported. SpaceX has reserved three contingency checkpoints during Flight 15's mission timeline to allow for an early Pacific Ocean return, should engineers determine a catch attempt to be unfeasible or unwise, Space.com reported. The first comes just 10 minutes after the completion of Starlink satellite deployment, the second at T+7 hours and 15 minutes, and a final one at T+20 hours and 41 minutes, Space.com reported.

Should Ship continue to look good through each of these milestones, SpaceX will proceed with a 10-second deorbit burn at approximately T+21 hours and 36 minutes, setting the spacecraft on a trajectory back toward South Texas, Space.com reported. Its plunge through Earth's atmosphere will begin about 35 minutes later, Space.com reported. SpaceX has also designated a contingency splashdown zone in the Gulf of Mexico, should conditions prevent a safe catch during Ship's final approach, Space.com reported.

If all goes according to plan, Ship will return to Starbase on Saturday at approximately 4:17 p.m. EST (2117 GMT; 3:17 p.m. Texas time), about 22.5 hours after liftoff, Space.com reported. A successful catch would be a major milestone for SpaceX — the first-ever recovery of a Starship upper stage, Space.com reported.

Background

SpaceX has previously returned the 236-foot Super Heavy booster three times to its launchpad after sending Starship to space, with the booster flying itself back to Earth minutes after launch and gently descending upright into the grasp of a pair of large mechanical arms fixed to the launch tower, NBC News reported. The last such "tower catch" was in March 2025, NBC News reported.

NASA has helped fund Starship's development with roughly $3.2 billion paid to SpaceX since selecting the rocket ship in 2021 to serve as a lunar lander for its astronauts under the multibillion-dollar Artemis moon program, NBC News reported. SpaceX has put at least $15 billion of its own funds into the rocket's development, NBC News reported.

NASA and SpaceX expect Starship to land humans on the moon by 2028, though several major testing objectives remain that analysts and industry engineers believe will push that timeline back, NBC News reported. Those milestones include demonstrating complex fuel transfers between Starship tanker rockets in orbit, a critical process that will enable Starship to travel beyond Earth's orbit to the moon, NBC News reported.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin is also developing a moon lander, Blue Moon, for NASA under the Artemis program, NBC News reported. Blue Moon is poised to join Starship and another spacecraft, NASA's Orion capsule, in Earth's orbit next year for Artemis III, a docking test mission before NASA's planned moon landing missions begin with Artemis IV, NBC News reported.

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Sources

• nbcnews.com: SpaceX launches 15th Starship flight; aborts booster recovery maneuver
• space.com: SpaceX launches Starship on ambitious 22-hour Flight 15 test, but aborts booster 'chopsticks' catch (video) | Space

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.