Starship test flight 15 happened about 45 minutes ago as I write this. The agenda for this launch was more expansive, including plans to attempt tower catches of both the booster and the ship. Also, the ship would enter orbit for the second time and release another 26 Starlink satellites.
The liftoff this time was clean. All 33 booster engines remained lit during the boost phase. Here's the launch video. It's still amazing to me how fast this thing clears the tower.
BREAKING: SpaceX’s Starship Flight 15 lifts off from Starbase, Texas. https://t.co/GSMYoFBV9P
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) November 13, 2026
Stage separation appeared to go smoothly. However, one engine on the booster (out of 33) did go out and a decision was made not to attempt a tower catch on the booster. I've been listening but I don't think they've revealed why that decision was made yet. After stage separation they were still go for a catch but obviously something changed.
Starship Flight 15 successfully completes hot-stage separation https://t.co/7s545Vx8OK
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) November 13, 2026
After that, the ship continued to climb with all six engines and the booster wound up doing a water landing off shore.
Super Heavy diverted to an offshore splashdown in the Gulf on Starship Flight 15 instead of the planned tower catch. Landing burn, then the booster hits the water. Starship flies on. https://t.co/9SRSjE4Mh5
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) November 13, 2026
It looks like they blew it up at the end, just after the sonic boom hit. If you look closely at those final frames, you can see the entire booster is being crushed like an aluminum can. You can see the explosion in this clip. Was that planned? Probably, but I'm waiting to hear the details.
Final moments of Starship Flight 15 booster https://t.co/ST2FWFwLuX
— Toby Li (@tobyliiiiiiiiii) November 13, 2026
Here are some stills showing the end of this booster.
Swipe for the full sequence: Super Heavy Booster 22 offshore divert during Starship Flight 15! https://t.co/ybDABIk0Mz
— John Kraus (@johnkrausphotos) November 13, 2026
The ship did a short extra burn to enter orbit and then about 15 minutes later it started ejecting Starlink satellites. Two of those satellites, #2 and #4, had cameras on them. As they left the ship, the cameras looked backwards as the entire ship rotated itself so the ground crew could examine the heat shield. The point of this was to help them decide if everything looked good for reentry and the attempted tower catch.
Then the ship continued pushing out satellites. As I write this 19 of the 26 have exited the ship. Once that's done, Starship is supposed to continue to orbit the earth for about 21 hours before dropping out of orbit and returning to earth for an attempted tower catch.
As of now, that appears to still be going as planned, but remember in test 14 they did cut the number of orbits short after some engine problems. No engine problems so far this time around but if all goes well the ship will be orbiting until tomorrow afternoon.
My guess is they'll cut away and not livestream the whole 22 hours but if you want to scroll back through the feed, here it is. The just announced the final satellite has deployed and they have already made contact with all 26 of them.
Live webcast of Starship's 15th flight test starts now → https://t.co/xvmIH2diNA
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 13, 2026
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