Elon Musk said Starship Flight 15 is about four to six weeks away, launching “a little bit before Thanksgiving,” and that SpaceX will try to catch the ship for the first time. He gave the estimate in a virtual interview at the X Takeover fan event at Giga Texas on Saturday, Oct. 10. U.S. Thanksgiving falls on Nov. 26. SpaceX has not announced a Flight 15 date.
What Musk Said About Timing
Four to six weeks is about right. Probably launches a little bit before Thanksgiving is my guess. And that one, if it succeeds, is a big one because … we catch the booster, which we’ve already proven. … But we’re going to try to catch the ship, which is a super big deal. And if we do so, that’ll be the first time that there’s been full recovery of an orbital class rocket.
Elon Musk, X Takeover, Oct. 10, 2026
Musk said the vehicle does not need many changes before Flight 15, but some of them require crews to go inside the tank. That work is why he would not commit to an exact date. Between flights, he said, SpaceX often makes hundreds and sometimes thousands of small changes.
It is the first rough timing for Flight 15 since Flight 14 reached orbit and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites on Sept. 28, the first orbital mission for Starship, SpaceX’s fully reusable super heavy-lift rocket.
The Ship Catch
Musk said SpaceX will try to catch the ship on Flight 15. SpaceX has already proven booster catches, and a ship catch would make it the first full recovery of an orbital-class rocket, he said. His next milestone after that is reflight: “The next big milestone would be to refly both the booster and the ship,” he said, naming that as the goal for Flight 16.
Even after a full reflight, Musk described a “long tail” of engineering, production and launch-system work before Starship becomes the rapidly reusable, reliable rocket SpaceX is aiming for.
Planning documents point to a similar window. NASASpaceflight reports an unofficial planning schedule with Flight 15 from Starbase Pad 2 no earlier than Nov. 8 and Flight 16, possibly from Kennedy Space Center’s LC-39A, no earlier than Dec. 10. SpaceX has not confirmed either date.
What Flight 14 Taught SpaceX
Flight 14 lost an engine on the way up. Musk tied the engine-out to engine computer software on that one engine, a problem not seen on the others, and said the team judged it safe to continue to orbit.
The engines are robust, apart from that one glitch. But that glitch doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue. It’s like pretty easy to remedy, but like the heat shield was extremely robust on this flight, and that’s one of the hardest things.
Elon Musk, X Takeover, Oct. 10, 2026
Why Starship Waited to Go Orbital
Musk said SpaceX could have reached orbit on any of its earlier flights. It held back until it was confident the ship could get back down. The main worry was whether the three sea-level Raptor engines would relight for the deorbit burn, the step that brings Starship out of orbit on a controlled path. The sequence is laid out in our explainer on how a Starship flight works.
We don’t want Starship to get stuck in orbit and then randomly reenter and maybe land on something. You know, that’s our main thing is trying to make sure things are safe and possible.
Elon Musk, X Takeover, Oct. 10, 2026
