SpaceX
SpaceX recycles Falcon Heavy’s commercial launch debut to Thurs – here’s why
SpaceX has scrubbed the first attempted launch of Falcon Heavy Flight 2 due to high upper-level winds deemed too much of a risk to mission success. Thursday, April 11th’s recycled launch window is identical to Wednesday’s, stretching from 6:35pm-8:31pm ET (22:35-00:31 UTC).
According to SpaceX, both the Falcon Heavy Block 5 rocket and its Arabsat 6A satellite payload are in good health and would have been ready to launch on April 10th if the weather had been slightly more cooperative. While seemingly innocuous, something as basic as wind currents can risk the partial or total failure of rockets even as large as Falcon Heavy, The intricacy and stress-optimized nature of Falcon Heavy’s three interlinked boosters make the rocket particularly susceptible to off-nominal aerodynamic stresses, constantly performing a sort of balancing act to keep those boosters flying in a sort of formation at extreme speeds.
While rockets are also susceptible to extreme ground-level wind conditions, upper-level wind violations are far more common, particularly for SpaceX’s Falcon family. Falcon 9 and Heavy are uniquely at the mercy of these conditions due to a fineness ratio (height vs. width) unprecedented at their level of performance. In fact, Falcon boosters are so long, skinny, and mass-optimized that SpaceX actually pressurizes them with nitrogen during extended/unsupported periods in a horizontal orientation. In simpler terms, held near its extremities, Falcon first stages can actually damage themselves under their own weight by bending somewhere in the middle.
Past a certain point, this bending is highly undesirable. The walls of Falcon 9’s lithium-aluminum alloy propellant tanks – also doubling as part of the rocket’s load-bearing structure – are approximately 0.2 in (5mm) thick, around 40% thinner than an iPhone X. Weighing approximately 25,000 kg (55,000 lb) empty yet 550,000 kg (1,210,000 lb) when full of fuel, Falcon 9 is thus a bit like a rolled sheet of printer paper balancing under a textbook while accelerating at several Gs.
The problem is that Earth’s atmosphere is heavily stratified: there are many different horizontal layers of air that can end up moving in very different directions at very different speeds. Imagine for a second that you’re sprinting along a sidewalk but each sidewalk section is actually a treadmill moving slightly left or right. Running along at full speed, you abruptly hit several sections that are rapidly moving, say, right. Bad times are had. For Falcon Heavy (or 9), running into high upper-level winds is much less exaggerated but still ends up having the same effect: the rocket, like the runner, loses control authority and ends up a fair bit more sideways than intended. When rockets find themselves tilting more than a few degrees off of their vector, they start to bend and flex a lot. When rockets more than minutely bend and flex, they have a tendency to crumple and warp to the point that they will literally break into pieces a bit like a partially cooked spaghetti noodle.
Those same forces act on Falcon Heavy quite a bit differently than they do on a single Falcon 9, but the principle remains the same: sideways booster = bad news. The wind wins this round but SpaceX will be ready for another attempt today. Likely a strategic choice, Wednesday’s launch attempt was called off just shy of 20 minutes before propellant loading began, dramatically simplifying the process of turning Falcon Heavy around for another launch attempt.
Tune in later today for another exciting day of Falcon Heavy photos and prelaunch operations as photographers – including Teslarati’s Pauline Acalin and Tom Cross – return to Pad 39A to replace camera batteries and generally ogle an elegant rocket.
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Elon Musk
SpaceX makes history, catching Starship from orbit for the first time
SpaceX caught Starship’s upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday.
SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage with its launch tower for the first time on Saturday, bringing Ship 42 back to Starbase after roughly 22 and a half hours in orbit on Flight 15. No company has ever returned the upper stage of an orbital rocket to its launch site and caught it.
Ship 42 lifted off Friday evening on top of Booster 22, reached orbit and deployed all 26 of its Starlink V3 satellites. Three of those satellites carried cameras to photograph the ship’s heat shield, and SpaceX said the imagery showed it was in good shape for reentry, allowing controllers to pass on a backup splashdown option overnight. By Saturday morning, SpaceX posted on X that “Pad and tower systems are go for catch.” After about 14 orbits, the ship fired its engines to leave orbit, came back through the atmosphere and was caught by the tower’s chopstick arms.
IT HAPPENED https://t.co/KHITqHUWOf — TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 14, 2026
The catch salvages a flight that started with a setback. Super Heavy did not make it back to the tower on Friday. “We were initially go for a catch, but in the later stages of the coast, the booster aborted itself for a GNC issue that it detected and that put it into its landing offshore,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said. The booster hovered over the Gulf of Mexico before its flight termination system triggered and it came down in the water.
Elon Musk said Saturday that the booster ran short on propellant because its engines slightly underperformed. The fix, he wrote, is better engine consistency with Raptor V3.2 and a flight software change to cut the engines “about one second earlier” so enough fuel is left for the return. “This booster loss does not change our timeline to reach high volume, fully reusable Starship flights,” Musk added.
The ship is the harder half of that goal, and the one SpaceX had never recovered. Super Heavy has now been caught three times, most recently in March 2025, while every previous ship ended in the ocean or was lost. Falcon 9 lands its boosters routinely but throws its upper stage away on every launch. Musk described a full Starship recovery on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call as a “profound technology milestone,” and Saturday’s catch shows the hardest piece of it can work.
That piece matters for nearly everything SpaceX is planning. Reusable ships are what make the economics of launching Starlink V3 satellites at scale work, along with the Starmind orbital compute constellation. NASA’s Artemis lunar lander also depends on refilling Starships in orbit with repeated tanker flights, which requires vehicles that can fly again quickly. Musk has said he expects Starship to reach a weekly launch cadence in the first half of 2027.
Flight 15 also improved on the last Starship mission in September, which reached orbit but ended after about three hours with a Pacific splashdown when some engines shut down. Before this flight, SpaceX had shown an animation of the ship catch during its earnings webcast, and Musk put the odds of pulling it off on the first try at “more likely than not,” as Teslarati reported.
UPDATE: The FAA has granted the license for Starship Flight 15.
Starship Flight 15 License has been granted by the FAA!
Let’s go! https://t.co/DugsgjvYAe
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
SpaceX is set to attempt its 15th test flight of Starship this evening from Starbase, Texas.
SpaceX is targeting Starship Flight 15 for a launch as soon as today, Friday, November 13, pending an FAA Flight License, during a 75-minute window that opens at 4:45 p.m. CT (5:45 p.m. ET) from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. The flight remains pending final regulatory approval.
WATCH Starship Flight 15 here:
https://t.co/C6GnCHyF8p
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
The mission, using Booster 22 and Ship 42, aims to achieve the first full recovery of an orbital launch system. Primary objectives include a tower catch of the Super Heavy booster roughly six and a half minutes after liftoff and the first-ever tower catch of a Starship upper stage after more than 22 hours in space.
SpaceX will perform Starship double catch attempt with Flight 15
Between those catches, Ship 42 is planned to enter a low Earth orbit of about 275 km, complete roughly 14 orbits, and deploy 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites (Starlink Group 31-2). Three of those satellites carry cameras to inspect the ship’s heat shield in orbit and help controllers decide whether the vehicle is healthy enough for a return to the tower.
Contingency ocean splashdown options exist if either stage is not cleared for catch.
To watch the attempt, check the link to the broadcast in both X posts in this article. The live webcast is scheduled to begin about 30 minutes before liftoff and is planned to continue through the ship catch the next day, with the possibility of extended onboard views during the orbital coast via Starlink.
Because the schedule is dynamic, check back here or on our social media channels for the latest updates on window timing and regulatory status. A successful dual catch would mark a major milestone toward making Starship a rapidly reusable rocket capable of frequent flights.
WATCH Starship Flight 15 here:
https://t.co/C6GnCHyF8p
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 13, 2026
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship is going for a catch that could change spaceflight forever
SpaceX will try to catch both Starship stages today, a first for any orbital rocket.
SpaceX is set to launch Starship Flight 15 from Starbase on Friday afternoon, and if both stages make it back to the tower, the mission will go down as the first time an orbital rocket has ever been fully recovered. The 75 minute launch window opens at 4:45 p.m. CT from Pad 2, a day after SpaceX rolled Ship 42 out to the pad and shared photos of the move on X.
The first catch comes quickly. About six and a half minutes after liftoff, Booster 22 is scheduled to fly back to Starbase and settle into the launch tower’s chopstick arms, the first catch attempt for SpaceX’s V3 Super Heavy. SpaceX has caught the booster three times before most recently in March 2025.
Ship 42 moves to the Starbase pad ahead of launch https://t.co/pMUFTHneJQ — SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 13, 2026
The second catch is the one that has never been done. Ship 42 will climb to an orbit about 275 kilometers up, deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites and complete about 14 orbits. Three of those satellites carry cameras to inspect the ship’s heat shield before it commits to coming home. If its reentry, landing burn and tower approach systems pass their checks, the ship will fire its engines to leave orbit, fall through the atmosphere in its belly flop position, flip vertical and drop into the tower about 22 and a half hours after launch, on Saturday afternoon. SpaceX gave a preview of that maneuver in an animation during its third quarter earnings webcast.
Elon Musk described a successful double catch on that call as “the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered” and a “profound technology milestone,” putting the odds of catching the ship at “more likely than not.” SpaceX has called it a potential “breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket,”
Reuse is where the economics change. Falcon 9 lands its boosters routinely, but its upper stage is thrown away on every flight. Starship is designed so both stages can be refueled and flown again, which is key to cutting launch costs. That matters for Starlink, where each V3 satellite is expected to carry roughly 10 times the download capacity of the V2 Mini satellites flying today, and for Starmind, SpaceX’s planned constellation of AI compute satellites.
It matters for NASA too. Starship is the lunar lander for the Artemis program, and reaching the Moon requires refilling a ship in orbit using several tanker flights. That plan only works if Starships can fly again and again. Musk has said he expects Starship to reach a weekly launch cadence in the first half of 2027.
Investors are paying attention. Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas wrote this week that a catch of both stages would likely be “a material positive” for SpaceX stock.
The last Starship flight in September reached orbit for the first time but ended after about three hours with a splashdown in the Pacific, short of its planned 10 hours, after some engines shut down. Since then, Booster 22 has completed a full 33 engine static fire and Ship 42 a six engine firing, as Teslarati previously reported. As of Friday morning, SpaceX was still waiting on the FAA to approve a license change covering the ship’s return over land.
SpaceX makes history, catching Starship from orbit for the first time
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