SpaceX goes for the first full Starship catch on Friday's Flight 15

SpaceX goes for the catch on Friday, with a launch window running from 5:45 pm ET to 7 pm ET from Starbase, its South Texas site. The target: grab both the Super Heavy booster and the Ship upper stage right back at the launch pad. If the tower pulls it off, it would be the first-ever full recovery of an orbital rocket — what SpaceX is calling a 'breakthrough moment' in its race to make Starship rapidly reusable.

The flight's day job is hauling 26 Starlink V3 satellites to orbit, hardware meant to widen the network's capacity and boost user speeds. The mission is expected to run just over 22 hours. The Ship's upper stage is slated to return to the pad on November 14.

Elon Musk has pitched reusability as the whole point. 'If every time you drove somewhere you had to throw away the car, you'd be wow that's a crazy car where you have to throw away after every time you drive it. But that's how it works for rockets,' the CEO told an audience at a 2025 event marking his takeover of X.

Starship's ambitions run well past satellites: SpaceX plans to use the rocket to land NASA Artemis astronauts on the Moon in 2028. Friday's attempt is the company's first shot at bringing the entire rocket back in one piece.