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Space·1 min read

SpaceX Targets Friday the 13th for Starship Flight 15 Double Catch

SpaceX aims to launch Starship's 15th test flight on November 13, 2026, and will try to catch both the booster and the upper stage with its tower arms for the first time.

Starship and Super Heavy stacked on the launch tower with its catch arms at SpaceX's Florida-bound test program.
Image: Numerama
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SpaceX is targeting Friday, November 13, 2026 for the 15th test flight of Starship. Kiko Dontchev, the company's vice president in charge of launches, announced the date on November 5 on stage at the UP.Summit at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The date is still provisional. SpaceX has not yet published a mission page or a liftoff time. It will be confirmed once the FAA releases the airspace and maritime closures, usually a few days before launch. Until now the schedule had been fluid: FAA air traffic planning documents mentioned November 8 and then November 12, while SpaceX had only said it was aiming for a flight this month.

The upper stage has never been caught

Flight 15 is the riskiest of the program so far. SpaceX plans to catch both stages of the rocket with the arms of its launch tower. The Super Heavy booster has already been caught this way several times. The Starship upper stage, which travels to orbit, has never attempted it.

SpaceX showed the planned maneuver in a video released in October. If the attempt succeeds, Starship would become the first orbital rocket recovered in full after a launch. The two vehicles assigned to the flight, Booster 22 and Ship 42, have both completed their static-fire tests on the ground.

Not afraid of the date

The date may worry the superstitious, but SpaceX has launched on other Friday the 13ths before. One of them carried French astronaut Sophie Adenot, who left Florida on Friday, February 13, in a flight that went smoothly.

As always in spaceflight, the schedule can still change at the last minute, and the FAA's published closures will be the first firm signal that the November 13 attempt is on.

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Tags:spacexstarshipflight 15super heavyfaalaunch tower catch

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