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SpaceX tried something on Friday evening that no one has ever tried before: catching both halves of the largest rocket ever flown, in a single flight. It got one half right. At 5:47 p.m. Eastern time on November 13, the nearly 400-foot Starship lifted off from Starbase in Texas — Super Heavy Booster 22 below, Ship 42, nicknamed "Don't Panic", on top. About six and a half minutes later, the booster was supposed to fly itself back to the launch tower and be caught mid-air by giant mechanical arms. Instead, automated safety checks called off the catch, and the booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico. The upper stage, meanwhile, reached orbit and is still flying — and on Saturday afternoon, SpaceX will try to catch that one instead.
What was supposed to happen
Flight 15 was designed as the first "double catch". After liftoff, the Super Heavy booster was to separate about two minutes in, fire its boostback burn, flip around, and steer back to the launch pad, where the tower's steel arms — nicknamed "chopsticks" — would catch it out of the air. The upper stage, Ship 42, would continue to orbit, deploy 26 of SpaceX's latest Starlink V3 satellites, coast for about 22 hours and 14 orbits, then re-enter the atmosphere and return to the very same tower on Saturday for a catch attempt planned for around 4:17 p.m. Eastern time. If both catches had worked, it would have been the first round-trip rocket voyage to orbit and back to the spot it left — the key test of Elon Musk's plan to build a fully reusable rocket system.
What actually happened
The launch itself was clean. The booster separated on schedule, completed its boostback burn, and began steering back toward the Texas coast. Then, about six and a half minutes into the flight, telemetry showed that specific catch parameters were not fully satisfied. SpaceX's rules for a tower return are strict by design: thousands of automated health checks must register as normal on both the booster and the launch tower before controllers give the final green light. Rather than risk a multi-hundred-ton vehicle slamming into the launch infrastructure or nearby propellant storage, the automated safety system diverted the booster eastward. It executed a controlled landing burn over open water and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, where it broke apart on impact. SpaceX has not said what triggered the abort, and its teams are reviewing the booster telemetry to find out.
The upper stage had a better evening. Ship 42 reached orbit about 27 minutes after launch, at around 6:13 p.m. Eastern — only the second time a Starship upper stage has made it to orbit at all. It began releasing its cargo of 26 Starlink V3 satellites about 36 minutes into the flight. That makes Flight 15 the second Starship test flight to carry operational Starlink satellites to orbit, after the previous launch in September, which also reached orbit despite some engines shutting down mid-flight.
How the chopstick catch works — and why it aborts
The catch sounds like a stunt, but it is the core of Starship's economics. A conventional rocket throws its booster away or lands it on legs; Starship's tower catches the booster with two motorised steel arms, so the vehicle needs no landing legs and can be refuelled and reflown quickly. SpaceX first caught a Super Heavy booster this way in late 2024, and has now done it three times, all with the earlier V1 version of the booster. The last tower catch was on Flight 8, back in March 2025. Flight 15 was the first attempt with the new V3 Super Heavy, which began flying this year — and the first time SpaceX had tried to catch the upper stage as well.
The abort is the system working as designed, not failing. A catch attempt is only allowed when every automated check passes; if any parameter is off, the default is the ocean, not the tower. That conservatism is why the launch pad survived the evening intact, and why SpaceX can try again on the next flight while it studies the telemetry. The company has said engineering teams will review the data to identify the specific trigger as preparations continue for Flight 16.
Why Saturday matters more
For all the attention on the booster, the bigger prize is still in the air. If Ship 42 survives re-entry on Saturday and the tower catches it, it will be the first time any spacecraft of this size has been caught after returning from orbit — completing the round trip the whole programme is built around. But SpaceX has been clear that the catch will only be attempted if all the systems needed to guide the ship through the atmosphere and into the tower are healthy. Reaching orbit does not guarantee the catch goes ahead; if anything looks off, the ship will be sent to a controlled ocean splashdown in the Pacific instead.
The flight is also a marker of where Starship stands. This was the 15th Starship test flight since 2023, and it may be one of the last from Texas before the programme shifts to Florida, where facilities at Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A are undergoing final testing. The booster miss is a setback, but it is a measured one: the rocket flew, the ship reached orbit, the satellites deployed, and the safety system chose the sea over the tower. On Saturday afternoon, the second half of the experiment gets its turn.