With Florida waiting in wings, SpaceX attempts 1st double catch for Starship

Richard Tribou, Orlando Sentinel on Nov 13, 2026

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ORLANDO, Fla. — SpaceX is nearly ready to bring Starship to Florida, but has at least one more mission from Texas, and one that will try and recover both the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage for the first time.

Starship’s Flight 15 test mission is targeting liftoff from SpaceX’s Texas site Starbase during a 75-minute launch window that opens at 5:45 p.m. EST.

Despite a nationwide grounding of all flights Friday afternoon, but the FAA, SpaceX has continued to prep for launch with propellant loading of 12 million pounds of liquid oxygen and liquid methane having begun about an hour before the opening of the launch window.

Go for propellant load. Teams will soon begin loading Starship with ~12 million pounds of liquid oxygen and liquid methane

It marks the second time SpaceX will attempt an orbital launch with previous test missions having been suborbital. All previous flights also have brought the Starship upper stage down in the water, but Friday’s attempt will try for the first time to have it captured by a tower at the launch site.

That will come nearly a full day after an attempt to capture the Super Heavy booster, a feat SpaceX has performed on three previous missions. The recovery method has the booster hover adjacent the launch tower with two swiveling arms called “chopsticks” closing in on it for the capture. The recapture of the upper Starship stage will use the same recovery method.

“If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket,” the company posted on its website.

The upper Starship stage aims to orbit the Earth 14 times over 22 hours.

“Similar to Starship’s first orbital mission, the flight profile has been designed with the opportunity to insert into a passively safe suborbital trajectory or safely deorbit at multiple pre-determined areas over the ocean after raising to an orbital altitude,” SpaceX posted.

While on orbit, Starship’s upper stage will deploy 26 of the larger Starlink V3 satellites for its growing broadband internet constellation. Three of the satellites have a suite of cameras tacked on to scan Starship’s heat shield.

“Starship will only execute a return to launch site if the flight control team has ensured that the vehicle systems critical for reentry maneuvers and final landing burn and tower approach are healthy,” the company stated.

This could be the final test flight before operational missions from Kennedy Space Center, the company has stated.

It has been preparing the first of three Starship launch towers located on the Space Coast at KSC’s Launch Complex 39-A adjacent the pad it uses for Falcon Heavy launches.

The next two Starship launch towers will be at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 37, with the first mission to fly from there targeting mid-2027.

Elon Musk expects weekly launches from among its active sites by next year, with Florida’s first launch site along with Texas to start. Down the road, SpaceX looks to bring a massive Starship launch site online in Louisiana.

SpaceX along with Blue Origin need to have their Florida launch sites up and running by next summer when NASA attempts its Artemis III mission. That flight will feature launches of three rockets: SpaceX’s Starship, a Blue Origin New Glenn flying a test version of its Blue Moon lunar lander, and NASA’s Space Launch System rocket with four crew in the Orion spacecraft.

The mission calls for Orion to remain in low-Earth orbit, then dock with Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander as well as a lunar lander version of SpaceX’s Starship. That will pave the way for a 2028 mission that will use one of the two landers to bring humans back to lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.

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