SpaceX Catches Starship Ship 42 Returning From Orbit
The tower at Starbase, Texas, caught the upper stage with its arms after 14 orbits and about 22.5 hours of flight. The booster was lost the same day over the Gulf of Mexico.
On Saturday, November 14, 2026, at about 10:20 p.m. Central European time, the launch tower at Starbase in South Texas caught Ship 42 with its mechanical arms. The upper stage of the Starship rocket had just returned from orbit. According to SpaceX and the outlets that followed the flight, it is the first time the upper stage of an orbital rocket has been brought back to its launch site and caught in midair. The first stage of the same flight did not return to the tower and was lost over the Gulf of Mexico.
How did Flight 15 unfold?
Flight 15, the fifteenth test flight of the full Starship configuration since 2023, lifted off on Friday, November 13, at 4:47 p.m. Central U.S. time (22:47 UTC, or 11:47 p.m. in Serbia) from Launch Pad 2 at Starbase. The upper stage Ship 42 and the first stage Booster 22 are both Block 3 vehicles.
Ship 42 left 26 next-generation Starlink satellites in orbit. Three of them carry cameras that filmed the ship’s heat shield. According to SpaceX, the footage showed the shield in good shape for reentry, so controllers dropped the fallback option of a splashdown in the ocean during the night.
The ship circled the Earth 14 times at an altitude of about 265 kilometers and spent about 22.5 hours in orbit, the longest Starship flight to date. The previous flight, in September, reached orbit but ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean after about three hours instead of the planned 10, because some engines shut down.
On Saturday morning SpaceX posted on X that the pad and tower systems were ready for the catch:
“Pad and tower systems are ready for catch.”
What did the return look like?
To leave orbit, Ship 42 fired one engine for about 10 seconds. It then turned sideways to the atmosphere, in a position known as the “belly flop,” to slow down as much as possible, before flipping upright and relighting its engines near the tower. It hovered and then settled between the arms of the tower, known as Mechazilla. The catch came at about 3:20 p.m. Central U.S. time, which is 21:20 UTC, according to EarthSky, while one source gives 4:20 p.m. local time. The ship is 52 meters tall.
SpaceX commentator Dan Huot said on the live broadcast at the moment of the catch:
“Mechazilla has caught Starship, we have waited a long time to say that.”
The tower had caught a booster three times before, most recently in March 2025, but never an upper stage returning from orbit. A booster flies slower and lower on its way back than the ship does, which makes the return of the upper stage technically harder.
What happened to the booster?
The plan was to catch both stages for the first time. A few minutes after liftoff, Booster 22 gave up on returning to the tower and was redirected to the sea. Sources differ on the reason and on how it ended.
According to Huot, the booster aborted the return on its own:
“We were initially set up for the catch, but in the later phases of unpowered flight the booster aborted the return itself because of a guidance and control system problem it detected, and that sent it to a landing in the open sea.”
Commentator Kate Tice said the burn for the return ended early, apparently because of a low-fuel alarm, and the cause is still being investigated. Elon Musk wrote on X that the booster ran short of fuel because the engines performed slightly below expectations. The fixes, he said, are more uniform operation of the Raptor V3.2 engines and software that shuts the engines down about one second earlier.
As for the booster’s end, Universe Today reports that it fell into the sea near the coast, EarthSky and The National Desk, which carries AP, say it exploded over the Gulf of Mexico before touching the water, and Teslarati says it hit the water after the flight termination system was activated. After the redirect, commentator Jessie Anderson said:
“Safety is always our number one priority.”
Musk also said:
“Losing this booster does not change our timeline for getting to flights in large numbers and with a fully reusable Starship.”
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, after the November 13 launch, wrote on X: “Congratulations to the SpaceX team on another spectacular launch.”
Why does this matter for NASA and the Moon?
NASA plans to test Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander in low Earth orbit next year on the Artemis III mission. A landing of astronauts on the Moon is targeted for 2028 at the earliest. Musk expects weekly Starship flights in the first half of 2027.
What this flight does not prove
One successful return does not mean the ship is ready for a quick second flight. The National Desk, citing experts, reports that reentry can damage the heat shield or the engines and that fast turnaround has yet to be demonstrated. SpaceX will analyze the data, including how the Ship 42 heat shield behaved on reentry. The loss of the booster and the investigation into its cause remain open, and catching both stages on the same flight has not yet been done.
