SpaceX Starship Flight 15 Plans to Catch Ship, Super Heavy

SpaceX has laid out plans for Starship Flight 15 that would push the program into a new recovery milestone: catching both stages of the rocket stack using the Mechazilla tower arms at Starbase, Texas. The attempt aims to recover Super Heavy and the Starship upper stage (“Ship”) in a single flight, completing an end-to-end reuse demonstration for the two-stage system. Flight 15 will fly Booster 22 and Ship 42, the fourth pairing built to the larger Starship V3 design standard, launching from Orbital Launch Pad 2. Ground tests for the catch configuration began in mid-September 2026, with Ship 42 lifted into catch position. SpaceX has targeted a window roughly four to six weeks out, likely around Thanksgiving, without a specific date.