SpaceX launched the 15th flight of its Starship rocket from Starbase, Texas, on Friday 13 November 2026 at about 2248 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), according to Spaceflight Now. Space.com, Spaceflight Now and NASASpaceFlight report that the upper stage, called Ship 42, reached orbit and released 26 Starlink V3 internet satellites. SpaceX called off its planned tower catch of the first stage, Super Heavy Booster 22, which instead splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico and exploded, according to Spaceflight Now and CNBC. In the latest reports read, from up to about 0700 UTC on 14 November 2026, Ship 42 was still in orbit and its landing attempt at Starbase was scheduled for about 2120 UTC that day. The outcome was not known when this post was written.

Ship 42 in orbit

  • Orbit: NASASpaceFlight reports that the ship first flew a suborbital path for safety, then fired a single engine for its orbital insertion burn about 26 minutes after liftoff. Space.com reports that SpaceX described it as the second time Starship has reached orbit. The first was Flight 14 on 28 September 2026.
  • Satellites: Space.com reports that all 26 satellites were deployed by about 1 hour 17 minutes into the flight. Space.com and NASASpaceFlight say three of the satellites carry cameras to image the ship’s heat shield, and NASASpaceFlight says those images are key to clearing the ship for a return over land.
  • Return plan: The mission is planned to last about 22.5 hours and 14 orbits. Spaceflight Now says that if all systems stay healthy, the ship is scheduled to return to Starbase at about 2120 UTC on 14 November (Aerospace Global News says about 21:17 GMT), and that SpaceX can end the mission early with splashdowns off Hawaii or Chile. Space.com says a successful catch would be the first recovery of an orbital Starship upper stage.

Booster 22 and the FAA

Spaceflight Now says the flight plan called for Booster 22 to return to launch pad 2 about 6.5 minutes after liftoff, but that it diverted to an offshore splashdown for unspecified reasons. It adds that three earlier boosters were caught by the tower and that no Version 3 Super Heavy has yet returned successfully. Space.com says the cause of the abort was unclear. KeepTrack says SpaceX called off the catch over a safety concern.

Before the launch, NASASpaceFlight reported that SpaceX needed the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to approve a license modification for Flight 15, including permission to return Ship 42 to the tower, which involves flying over populated areas. After the launch it reported that the FAA published an updated launch license, allowing the mission to proceed. CNBC reports that SpaceX obtained FAA authorization on Friday before launch, that the FAA later issued a nationwide ground stop over communication problems at air traffic control centers, and that an FAA spokesperson said SpaceX’s license was not affected by the stoppage.

Capacity figures attributed to SpaceX

CNBC reports that SpaceX has said one Starship can carry up to 60 Starlink V3 satellites, about 20 times the capacity of earlier Falcon 9 rockets. Aerospace Global News reports that, according to SpaceX, the latest batch adds roughly one terabit per second of network capacity, equal to about ten Falcon 9 launches carrying smaller V2 Starlink satellites. On constellation size, CNBC says Starlink has over 11,000 active satellites. Spaceflight Now, in a separate article, says Starlink has more than 11,000 satellites in orbit according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell’s statistics, and that Amazon has launched nearly 400 Leo satellites across 14 missions since April 2025.

Where reports differ

Liftoff time: Spaceflight Now gives 4:48 p.m. Central Standard Time (2248 UTC), CNBC gives 4:47 p.m. local time, and Space.com gives 2247 GMT. Deployment timing: NASASpaceFlight says deployment began about 35 minutes into the flight and ran to at least 1 hour 17 minutes; KeepTrack says all 26 were deployed about 40 minutes in; Aerospace Global News says the operation took about 42 minutes. A summary line in CNBC’s article says SpaceX tried but failed to recover both stages, while the body of that article and the other outlets say the ship’s landing attempt was still ahead.

Sources and notes

Sources: Space.com live blog, Spaceflight Now, NASASpaceFlight’s launch article and pre-launch FAA article, CNBC, KeepTrack, Aerospace Global News and Spaceflight Now’s Vulcan article, all read. SpaceX’s own Flight 15 page loaded only as an empty script page and could not be read, so SpaceX statements here are as relayed by these outlets. A 13 November Space Foundation digest was not found. The ship’s landing outcome is not covered.

Image: SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy lifting off from the launch tower at Starbase, Texas, during Integrated Flight Test 5, 13 October 2024. Photo: Steve Jurvetson (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons; cropped. Stand-in image: not a photo of Starship Flight 15 or of the Starlink V3 satellites.