SpaceX
What SpaceX’s successful reuse of Dragon Spacecraft really means
Following Saturday’s auspicious launch and and first stage recovery, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft has successfully rendezvoused and docked with the International Space Station. Bringing with it more than 5,000 pounds of food, water, scientific experiments, and technology demonstrations, the company’s eleventh mission under their first Commercial Resupply Services contract is exceptional for a very unique and specific reason: the vehicle has flown before, bringing cargo to the ISS on SpaceX’s fourth CRS mission to the ISS. This accomplishment makes the Dragon currently docked at the ISS the only commercial spacecraft in human history to be launched into orbit more than once, continuing a tradition of auspicious firsts.
CRS-11 just after liftoff. Note the core designation “35” under the landing leg. (SpaceX)
Slightly more than two months after the first ever successful reuse of an orbital-class rocket, SpaceX now has two extraordinary demonstrations of success in favor of the company’s pursuit of democratizing affordable access to space. Reusability is and has been SpaceX’s method of pursuing that goal for at least a decade, with Musk publicly exhorting the potential benefits of rapid and complete reusability as early as 2007. It is almost a running joke within the community of aerospace and SpaceX fans that Musk will compare commercial airlines to orbital launch services at least once every time he is interviewed, but his point is and has long been clear. If all one has to do to run a transportation service is refuel after every trip, the price of a ticket or cargo transport drastically decreases. While many have slyly laughed or dismissed this goal in the past, often using the Space Shuttle as an example of the futility of reusability as a tool for cost reduction, it is quite hard to deny what SpaceX has accomplished so far.
The reuse of a Cargo Dragon is also arguably far more significant than it may initially appear. SpaceX has not provided any concrete information on the process of refurbishing the capsule, and it is entirely unclear if the “reuse” entailed much more than furnishing the CRS-4 pressure vessel and Draco thrusters with a new trunk, solar array, external shell. It is possible that, just like SES-10, the process of refurbishing a spacecraft for the first time resulted in little to no cost savings, and that this refurbishment took anywhere from several months to more than a year, with the CRS-4 capsule returning from orbit in late 2014. However, given the absolute rarity of reused capsule-type spacecraft, the data that engineers likely gathered throughout the process of refurbishing the Dragon would arguably make the whole process worthwhile even in the worst case scenarios described above. Hans Koenigsmann, Vice President of Mission Assurance at SpaceX, also noted in a press conference following CRS-11’s launch that the refurbishment of the capsule was somewhat uneventful, stating that the CRS-4 capsule had no unanticipated damage from the rigors of reentry and ocean landing and that SpaceX was already ready to consider using the capsule a third time. It’s likely that SpaceX will begin to rely more heavily on Cargo Dragon reuse as they refocus a majority of their manufacturing efforts on Dragon 2.
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- The CRS-4 Dragon just before capture. (NASA)
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- CRS-4 reentered in late 2014 and was recovered in the Pacific Ocean. (SpaceX)
SpaceX and Musk’s (in)famous ultimate ambitions are to make humanity a multiplanterary species, partly as a way to combat the extinction risks that an asteroid or comet strike pose, and partly because it is simply a staggering challenge that has the potential to make many humans “excited to wake up in the morning”. In order to make this happen, Musk saw that access to orbit was far too expensive for a colony on another planet to ever be sustainable, and that resuability was the only immediately obvious and accessible method through which the price to orbit could be decreased by several magnitudes. SpaceX is now almost routinely recovering Falcon 9 first stages when the mass of the payload allows it, and with a fifth and final version or “Block” of the vehicle optimized for rapid reuse set to debut later this year, Musk and others at the company have begun ruminating once more about the possibility of recovering and reusing the second stage of the Falcon 9. Benchmarked somewhere around 30% of the price of the vehicle, routine loss of the second stage effectively prevents the price of the Falcon 9 from dropping much below $20-30 million US dollars. While a nearly 50% or greater reduction in price would be an exceptional accomplishment, it is still far from from the multiple orders of magnitude reduction Musk hoped for when he set out to develop reusable rocketry.
A prototype of Dragon 2 being tested in an anechoic chamber. (SpaceX)
This is where the reuse of Dragon pops its head up. With second stage recovery now being considered theoretically and Dragon 2 (Crew Dragon) preparing to begin regular launches in either Q4 2017 or Q1 2018, SpaceX has a good deal of experience to gain from learning how to safely and rapidly recover and reuse vehicles reentering the atmosphere at orbital velocity. Compared to recovering the first stage, this is another endeavor entirely. The fastest speed at which a recoverable first stage can ever realistically reenter the atmosphere is currently capped at around 5200 mph (2300 m/s), and is usually much closer to 3000 mph. An orbital capsule like Dragon, however, enters the atmosphere from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) at around five times that speed, typically close to 16,000 mph. In the context of recovering the second stage of Falcon 9, one must consider that most of SpaceX’s commercial manifest is made up of geostationary satellites, which require more energy to reach a higher orbit, and consequently would require the second stage to survive even higher reentry velocities in order to be recovered.
Returning from Mars, as SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System would have to, results in even higher reentry velocities of at least 25,000 mph for a reasonably quick journey. This is the most important detail in explaining the true value of simply reusing a Dragon capsule as SpaceX has just now done. By taking its first steps towards routinely reusing truly orbital spacecraft, SpaceX is advancing their knowledge reusability in practice and consequently taking concrete steps to prepare themselves for the difficult challenges that lie ahead in their pursuance of enabling sustainable colonization of Mars. Dragon 2 (Crew Dragon) promises to eventually rid the refurbishment process of the many headaches that salt water intrusion undoubtedly creates by returning via supersonic retropropulsion to a landing pad, much like Core 35 did this past Saturday.
Looking slightly further into the future, SpaceX has already announced plans to launch two unnamed private customers in a Dragon 2 on what would likely be a circumlunar free return trajectory, or around the Moon and back. The reentry velocity would be very similar to the velocity required to return to Earth from Mars, and certainly much faster than any reentry from geostationary orbits of Earth. If SpaceX manages to successfully and reliably recover and reuse orbital vehicles reentering at such high velocities, then the company will have made extraordinarily promising progress towards achieving their central goal of drastically lowering cost to orbit and thus enabling humanity to gain footholds on other planets.
So, take this Dragon reuse as you will. It may well be a major step along the way to colonizing Mars, or it may simply be an exciting practical implementation of SpaceX’s philosophy of reuse. Either way, this is a Dragon that is certainly worth celebrating.
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.
Elon Musk
Tesla and SpaceX merger talks hit a new stage, and one hurdle remains
Tesla and SpaceX merger talks are reportedly advancing, and a deal could arrive by December.
Tesla and SpaceX are moving closer to a combination, with a deal announcement possible as soon as December, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The companies have also discussed a scenario in which the announcement slips into early 2027.
Boards and advisers on both sides are now working through the terms of the deal and the governance structure of the combined company, according to the report. One open item is how many SpaceX shares Tesla investors would receive. Bloomberg had previously reported that the two companies were aiming to announce a deal in the first half of next year and close it before the end of President Donald Trump’s term, so a December announcement would pull that schedule forward by months.
Tesla shares rose as much as 1.9% to $398.35 after the report, while SpaceX gained 0.6% to $140.63. SpaceX carries a market value of about $1.9 trillion following its June IPO, and Tesla is valued at about $1.55 trillion, which would make a combination the largest corporate deal on record. Neither company responded to requests for comment.
The talks became official on October 20, when Elon Musk said on SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call that both companies had formed special committees of independent directors to study a merger, as Teslarati reported. Musk said he could not take part because he is “a conflicted party” and called the process “an odd kabuki dance.” He also noted that Tesla would need approval from 50 percent of all outstanding shares, a bar the company missed in 2025 when a board declassification proposal won support from only 39.4 percent.
China remains the biggest structural problem. Bloomberg’s sources said the companies still need to work out how to isolate Tesla’s large and profitable manufacturing business in China from SpaceX’s U.S. government and defense contracts. JPMorgan analyst Rajat Gupta described those two factors last month as “key dynamics that are at odds with each other” for regulatory and shareholder approval. Musk has repeatedly said Tesla has no plans to separate its China business, a position he restated in August after ARK Invest predicted a merger announcement before the end of the year.
Washington adds another layer. Democrats took control of Congress in this month’s midterms and have pledged to investigate Musk’s business and political activities, which could bring added scrutiny to a deal involving one of the Pentagon’s most important launch and satellite contractors.
The report also lands three weeks before Tesla’s December 3 annual meeting at Giga Texas. That ballot has only three items, led by the re-election of Musk, board chair Robyn Denholm and JB Straubel, and includes no merger proposal. Any deal announced in December would likely require a separate special meeting for Tesla shareholders to vote on it.
The two companies already share a growing list of projects, including the Terafab semiconductor plant in Texas. Tesla’s next generation Roadster, which uses cold gas thrusters built on SpaceX hardware, turned up on display at SpaceX headquarters last month and has become one of the clearest public examples of that overlap.
Tesla Cybercab goes on sale for $29,990, slated for December deliveries
SpaceX Starship Flight 15: How to watch the double catch attempt
