“Safety is always the number one priority, and we’re still testing out things that we haven’t done before on these vehicles, and so we are prioritising making sure that we can perform each maneuver safely,” said a SpaceX spokesperson.
SpaceX aborted the booster recovery during the 15th flight test of the Starship megarocket on November 13, 2026. The company diverted the first-stage rocket to an offshore splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico instead of returning it to the launch tower in Boca Chica, Texas.
Elon Musk’s company aimed for a 75-minute launch window opening at 5:45 p.m. EST on Nov. 13 from Starbase. Although previous V1 boosters had been successfully captured by the mechanical arms of the Mechazilla tower system in October 2024, January 2025, and March 2025, a Block 3 booster has yet to return to the launch tower successfully.
Offshore divert for the booster. No Super Heavy catch back at Starbase.
The 124-meter-tall rocket lifted off from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase at 4:47 p.m. local time, or 5:47 p.m. ET, following authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration, according to CNBC.
Minutes after lift-off and the mid-air hot staging separation powered by 33 Raptor engines, an unspecified technical problem forced engineers to abandon plans to catch the Super Heavy booster using the mechanical arms of the launch tower. As the booster descended into the Gulf of Mexico close to the launch site, a fireball burst out, leaving a portion of the hardware pointing straight up afterward.
“Not sure right now why we weren’t able to bring it back,” said Dan Huot of SpaceX.
Clayton Swope, an aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called the mission a “mixed bag so far” after the failure to catch the Super Heavy, an operation SpaceX had completed successfully on three earlier test flights.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated SpaceX for “another spectacular launch” without addressing the booster disappointment. William Blair analysts wrote in a note that “SpaceX is likely a full decade ahead of peers on this front,” while Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas said that catching both stages would likely be “a material positive” for company stock.
While the first stage splashed down in the ocean, the upper stage known as Ship continued its trajectory into Earth’s orbit. The spacecraft deployed 26 next-generation Starlink V3 satellites during its flight, matching the payload release of the previous test flight.
Each V3 satellite adds roughly 1 Tbps of capacity to the constellation, and three of the deployed satellites carry cameras to inspect the condition of the ship’s heat shield. The company stated on X that the mission aimed toward “Starlink becoming 51% of the internet,”.
The Ship was scheduled to circle the globe 14 times at an altitude of 275 kilometers over more than 22 hours before attempting a return to the launch site at Starbase.
Representatives for SpaceX informed reporters during a facility walkthrough that the organization maintains the capacity to build a booster every four weeks and a spaceship every two weeks. Achieving greater operational scale, the firm maintains, depends on full rocket reusability and expanded launch infrastructure. NASA’s lunar timelines count on Starship to serve as a lunar lander for the Artemis missions, with Artemis III scheduled for 2027 and Artemis IV planned for 2028.
Professor James Osborn of Durham University said that “the spacecraft should be very bright, considerably brighter than Starlink satellites due to its size.” Rao further explained that when passing overhead, “it would look like a bright, fast-moving star crossing the sky, similar to the International Space Station or potentially brighter depending on its orientation.”
Live views of Starship in orbit brought to you by @Starlink pic.twitter.com/7RW3I1LG2e
Earlier coverage: SpaceX Starship Booster Fails Catch Attempt, Hits Gulf of Mexico
Starship is now in a long coast phase around Earth. Teams will monitor Starship’s systems over the next ~21 hours that we intend to be in orbit for. We do have a few early deorbit options available should we need them, but all systems are looking good right now
