SpaceX is gearing up for its upcoming Starship launch this Friday, marking the first attempt to recover the spacecraft at its Texas launch site instead of allowing it to fall into the ocean. This is a significant milestone in Elon Musk’s initiative to establish a fully reusable rocket system.
The Starship rocket, standing at 124 meters tall, is set to take off at 5:45 p.m. ET from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities in South Texas. This mission will be the 15th flight of the Starship since 2023 and the second dedicated to deploying operational Starlink satellites. Thus, this launch serves a dual purpose: it generates revenue for the satellite connectivity service while also acting as a critical test for a rocket that is still under development.
As of Friday morning, SpaceX had not yet acquired a launch license from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Historically, the FAA has issued licenses a day before previous Starship launches, but they did not provide immediate comments on this situation.
Musk’s company views the next-generation Starship rocket as essential for expanding its Starlink satellite network and, in the future, deploying a large number of AI data-processing satellites called Starmind. This strategy is part of SpaceX’s efforts to establish itself as an infrastructure leader.
In September, SpaceX successfully launched Starship for the first time, sending the rocket and its satellites into orbit despite some engines failing mid-flight. That mission, which was intended to last 10 hours, concluded after approximately three hours with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX amazed engineers, scientists, and space fans by successfully retrieving its heaviest rocket booster back to its launch pad intact. This achievement not only demonstrates the technical brilliance of the Starship rocket but is also expected to significantly lower mission costs through reusability.
For the upcoming mission, SpaceX plans to recover both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship upper stage after launch. The upper stage, which functions as the spacecraft’s top half, is anticipated to return approximately 22 hours post-launch. SpaceX has indicated that this would mark a “breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket” if everything proceeds as intended.
Preparing for Starship
SpaceX has successfully brought the 71-meter-tall Super Heavy booster back to its launch pad three times after launching Starship into space, using large mechanical arms attached to its launch tower to catch it vertically around 10 minutes following liftoff. The last occurrence of this “tower catch” took place in March 2025.
For the 15th mission, SpaceX must clear the Super Heavy booster from the launch pad to accommodate Starship, which is projected to re-enter after completing 14 orbits around Earth. This sets the stage for the inaugural Starship catch to happen around 3:45 p.m. ET on Saturday.
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Musk has expressed his expectation to achieve a weekly launch schedule for Starship by the first half of 2027, while SpaceX has noted that it may start launching Starship from a new site in Florida by late 2026.
Nasa has contributed approximately $3.2 billion to support the development of Starship since selecting it in 2021 as a lunar lander for astronauts under the Artemis program, which is worth billions. SpaceX has invested at least $15 billion of its own resources into the rocket’s development.
A video captured in Turks and Caicos shows debris streaking through the sky after the latest Starship rocket disintegrated during a test flight.
Nasa and SpaceX aim for Starship to facilitate human landings on the moon by 2028, although several critical testing milestones remain, which industry analysts and engineers believe could delay this timeline.
These milestones include proving the ability to conduct complex fuel transfers between Starship “tanker” rockets in orbit, a vital process necessary for enabling Starship to venture beyond Earth’s orbit to the moon.
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is also working on a lunar lander named Blue Moon for NASA under the Artemis program. Blue Moon is set to join Starship and NASA’s Orion capsule in Earth’s orbit next year for Artemis III, a docking test mission ahead of NASA’s planned lunar landing efforts with Artemis IV.