Starship Flight 15 on 11/13 plans to catch both booster and ship
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I'm curious why they don't fully load it, I can speculate:
0) starship is still in testing, they don't want to change too many variables from flight 14 and add 50t of payload.
1) lower payload gives them more options in engine-out situations. On flight 14, both booster and ship had engines fail.
2) derisking for ship failure, each Starlink sat costs ~$1.2m, and losing $30m of satellites hits less hard than $60m if orbital insertion fails.
3) the dispenser installed on ship 42 only fits 26 sats, and increasing this would require a hardware modification and possible delays.
4) Starlink v3 manufacturing is delayed and they don't have enough units, which I find doubtful given Starship is years late and they should have a backlog of v3s waiting to launch.
5) block 3 has worse performance than expected and can't reliably deliver 100t to orbit. Recent comments that raptor 3 can only reliably deliver 230t of thrust instead of 280t support this. I speculate SpaceX is running raptor 3 >230t on booster ascent, which is why we keep seeing engines failing. This should be resolved by block 4 or 5 with raptor 4.
I can absolutely see not wanting to change too many variables while they're working out the full, targeted flight profile. I can also see, with sufficient confidence, that they'd make the line between test/production a bit fuzzy with carrying production payloads rather than mass simulators. Trade-offs... not much else to say.
For Starlink v3, I could absolutely see them delaying production starts until the capability to actually deliver them was closer to reality without regard to backlogs and schedule delays: why tie up capital in satellites sitting in a warehouse? Especially if you're also improving designs, adjusting those designs for new realities/tech/etc. getting ahead of that game would (my gut feeling) have more costs than benefits.
Until then all the system level performance estimates that expected the higher thrust per engine need to be revised back.
Getting the Starship back is of huge value of them, and one of the main things that would stop that would be to lose enough engines that you don't make it to orbit. There's some payload number that lets you make it to orbit with, say, 2 engines failing to start - and beyond that, you just lose control of the vehicle all the time so it doesn't matter.
Assuming the payload is low enough value, it makes sense to fill it up as far as you can without lowering the probability of success unrealistically.
What is the production rate of these birds?
If you have a 50/50 chance of success now and a 25% chance a month later, and you can't replace the lost birds in production in that interval, it makes sense to hedge irrespective of production cost.
6) Starlink v3 is itself new and nearly untested. Launching a lot of v3.00 models, then discovering that they really need to be upgraded to v3.01 to fix various hardware issues, is not a win.
Yes, and that could also tie back into #4:
>Starlink v3 manufacturing is delayed and they don't have enough units, which I find doubtful given Starship is years late and they should have a backlog of v3s waiting to launch
This assumes that a delay isn't completely purposeful. Technology and their experience with Starlink has continued to advance over those years of delay, it's not like they simply stopped iterating with Starlink v2, they just couldn't do everything or put all the pieces together in one package due to size/mass. But I'd be unsurprised if they took advantage of those extra years to keep working on it. They've proven they can ramp Starlink production easily, it's not clear they'd have any reason to produce some big backlog and have it sitting in a warehouse. Seems better to tie it closely to Starship's dev cycle so they end up launching current stuff, not sats that have been sitting around and are now years old already. They can ramp v3 Starlink production alongside Starship.
Which makes it the third heaviest orbital payload in all of history.
Funny thing to be disappointed about.
I'm not excited about more Starlink satellites.
They're also highly profitable, and fund/subsidize future missions. Recall, Starship development was funded by Starlink.
Ask your favorite AI about Michael D. Griffin and Pete Worden and their connection to SpaceX
The other moon lander NASA is going forward with has a tiny fraction of that, and there are plenty of people who think it’s better.
So nothing to be disappointing about Starship. Raptor v4 is already on the roadmap, and more down the road. You can speculate all you want. I just don't understand why you have to be disappointed. That SpaceX doesn't just "move fast and break things"?
The analogy you used (Falcon 9's payload growth) spans over 8 years. How long will it take Starship to start flying full payloads?
As long as it takes. Doing the never-done-before generally doesn't come with a firm finish date.
It continues to improve. Be patient.
That has been the narrative about every single step spacex has ever taken.
And you know what the trend is?
They are kicking fucking ass. Annihilating old space and the writing the game one incremental win at a time.
Yes, the trend is incredibly good.
Now the actual question: why is block 3 flying half loaded? You got a technical reason, or just vibes?
I’m an Engineer, I don’t speculate.
> I’m an Engineer, I don’t speculate.
You also said:
> Yes, the trend is incredibly good.
So you do speculate. Just not when someone asks for a reason.
You’re making stuff up (your entire first post is 100% speculation)
Starship is literally a boondoggle project by a space company that was the new kid on the block and now has the same hubris as the old kids on the block.
Nothing about the Starship development process is remotely close or has any similarity to Falcon 9.
Starship SpaceX is "old space".
The Falcon 9 philosophy was as follows: Make it work, then push the envelope and learn from the failures.
The Starship philosophy: Let's set ourselves ambitious goals that push the envelope from the start. Partial success is a failure. The cathedral must be finished before we can launch the first customer payload.
Hint: SpaceX doesn't want to cannibalize their cash cow Falcon 9. Typical old company thinking.
They've already stopped booking new Falcon 9 launches for customers.
All of Starlink's future ambitions are blocked by today's Starship.
be glad it wasn't mass simulators
November 13, 2026 18:45 - 20:00 AT Starship Flight 15 Flight 15 of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Friday, November 13, pending regulatory approval. The 75-minute launch window will open at 4:45 p.m. CT.
A live webcast of the flight will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. Coverage is planned to continue through ship catch, with the potential for hours of live views from Starship as it orbits Earth, powered by Starlink. As is the case with all launches, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
The upcoming flight is planned to be the first to return both Starship and Super Heavy to the launch site for catch. If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket.
Starship’s initial return to launch site mission is expected to orbit the Earth at an altitude of ~275 km and complete approximately 14 orbits around the planet over the course of a more than 22-hour flight. Similar to Starship’s first orbital mission, the flight profile has been designed with the opportunity to insert into a passively safe suborbital trajectory or safely deorbit at multiple pre-determined areas over the ocean after raising to an orbital altitude. Read more about the testing, mission design, and safety measures for first planned Starship catch.
Starship’s previous mission was the culmination of more than a dozen flight tests and years of development, sending Starship to orbit and deploying meaningful payloads to space for the first time. Watch “Go For Orbit”, the latest episode in the ongoing Starship series experience the moments behind flying the most ambitious Starship mission yet.
The booster’s primary objective on Flight 15 will be executing a successful launch, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and return to the launch site for catch. This will be the first return and catch attempt for a Super Heavy V3 booster. Three V1 boosters were successfully caught on earlier flight tests with two demonstrating successful reflights.
The Starship upper stage’s primary objectives include the deployment of 26 Starlink V3 satellites and the first return to launch site and catch at Starbase. Starship will only execute a return to launch site if the flight control team has ensured that the vehicle systems critical for reentry maneuvers and final landing burn and tower approach are healthy.
Starship will deliver 26 Starlink V3 satellites to orbit, which aim to greatly expand the network's capacity and user speeds. Each Starlink V3 satellite will add 1 Terabit of capacity to the constellation, with all 26 satellites equaling ~10 Starlink V2 Mini launches on Falcon 9.
After deploying from Starship, the Starlink V3 satellites will unfold their antennas and deploy their solar arrays and make initial contact with the ground and the rest of the Starlink constellation via radio frequency and laser links. The satellites will then begin raising their orbits with their onboard thrusters. Following their on-orbit checkouts, the satellites should begin serving customers as soon as a few weeks after launch.
Three of the satellites have been modified with a suite of cameras to scan Starship’s heatshield and transmit imagery down to operators. This method of analyzing Starship’s heatshield has been tested on previous flights and is one of several data sources to help inform Starship’s readiness to return to the launch site on Flight 15.
Starship’s heatshield will incorporate the improvements made on Flight 14 including additional retention mechanisms on tiles in areas deemed to be at highest risk of falling off during ascent and addressing areas with a flow path for plasma to get behind the tiles. The vehicle will also have a large portion of the heatshield equipped with a curved tile design that has shown the ability to reduce heating in the gaps between tiles.
Countdown All Times Approximate
00:50:00 SpaceX Flight Director conducts poll and verifies GO for propellant load 00:35:33 Booster LOX (liquid oxygen) load underway 00:35:30 Booster fuel (liquid methane) load underway 00:35:12 Ship LOX load underway 00:35:11 Ship fuel load underway 00:21:40 Raptor begins engine chill on booster and ship 00:02:50 Booster propellant load complete 00:02:10 Ship propellant load complete 00:00:30 SpaceX flight director verifies GO for launch 00:00:17 Flame diverter activation 00:00:03 Booster engine startup command 00:00:00 Excitement guaranteed
FLIGHT TIMELINE All Times Approximate
00:00:00 Liftoff 00:00:58 Max Q (moment of peak aerodynamic stress on the rocket) 00:02:19 Super Heavy MECO (most engines cut off) 00:02:21 Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation) 00:02:26 Super Heavy boostback burn start 00:03:02 Super Heavy boostback burn shutdown 00:06:10 Super Heavy landing burn start 00:06:35 Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and catch 00:08:09 Starship engine cutoff 00:26:10 Starship orbital insertion burn start 00:26:30 Starship orbital insertion burn shutdown 00:35:01 Payload deploy start 01:17:40 Payload deploy complete 01:27:46 Early Hawaii Return Check 07:15:35 Mid Chile Return Check 20:41:55 Final Hawaii Return Check 21:35:57 Deorbit burn start 21:36:07 Deorbit burn shutdown 22:10:46 Starship entry 22:29:34 Starship is transonic 22:30:13 Starship is subsonic 22:32:16 Landing burn start 22:32:18 Landing flip 22:32:26 Landing burn 3 to 2 engines 22:32:33 Landing burn 2 to 1 engine 22:32:34 Starship landing burn shutdown and catch
The real criticism of SpaceX is they're now on the verge of quasi-monopolizing access to space. But the haters spent the last decade committed to "Starship doesn't work" so even after it does work, every other rocket is delayed and New Glenn vaporized its pad, they can't kick the supercopium and mount a critique of the company based in reality.
Hot payloads for the next few years are network connectivity and compute, two verticals SpaceX has chosen to compete in, which are major sources of revenue. Aside from saving room for strategic relationships with the US government, they can easily utilize all available capacity themselves.
Eventually, anti-trust law and/or another competent launch provider might break that monopoly. But Elon's buddy Don will control the Justice Dept. for a couple more years. And even for the competent, ramping up launch is slow.
What if at-scale rocket science is just extremely hard, and efforts to find "another Musk" continue to fail?
Internet satellites... that does look like a monopoly, or at least effectively one.
After nationalizing, Musk will have a huge pile of cash. He can then self-fund a new SpaceX/Starlink.
Yes, many current SpaceX/Starlink employees will stay put, but I'll bet that a critical mass will say "We get a fresh start on everything? I'm in."
Yeas, why not?
> Suppose starlink takes their C&C keys and builds a control center in some other country
That won't happen. It is obviously better to be fully legal billionaire (even if the government take away 99% of his assets) in the USA than to be in some other country (which can in any time change it's mind), wanted for treason by the USA. Not even close.
Starship doesn't work right now because it doesn't follow the Falcon 9 development process.
You first make it work, then you optimize and then you do the impossible.
The starship development process is: attempt the "impossible", then watch it not work out (which it didn't for Falcon 9 at first), and then optimize, then make it work.
Like, why exactly is full reusability necessary for Starship's success as a Starlink launcher? Why can't they do the reuse of the second stage after they've been flying payloads?
Something tells me they would be in trouble of they had to tell investors that their rocket is not as good as they advertise it. There is this strange incentive for them to delay their success as far as possible, which the exact opposite of the Falcon 9 development process.
It seems like SpaceX depends on Falcon 9 more than even its external customers otherwise they would have cannibalized its internal usage much sooner.
This could be seen as either straightforward corruption or a gamble on the Starship platform for future Mars exploration.
There are very sound economic reasons why rockets for Moon exploration like Saturn-V were built the way they were. Saturn-V was around $35-40B in today's money for 13 rockets and 6 landings (excluding lander, crew costs). It took 5.5 years from greenlight to first successful orbital flight (which was also its first flight). Starship will likely meet this target of 6 landings after about 20 years of development, $25B R&D (excluding crew/lander contracts), and possibly about $5B in launch costs. Asymptotic costs will of course be much lower, but launch costs do not dominate space exploration costs. The platform might be capable of Mars missions one day - but it's not clear how far out that goal is.
SLS still gets $2.5B every year, around $30 billion total so far (at least billion every year since 2011) and cost 40% more than they said it would: https://www.planetary.org/space-policy/cost-of-sls-and-orion
Starship being able to otherwise fund itself except for the Artemis R&D project is good for the government.
That is not the point I made though. The question is why money was spent on starship as a lunar vehicle - that being the main criticism I have seen in the media (e.g. SmarterEveryDay video). Of course that could turn out to be misplaced, but there's no point denying that that is the main criticism.
> SLS still gets $2.5B every year, around $30 billion total so far
Not relevant to the HLS contract either.
But a) it is more like $40B and b) we don't have full numbers yet to make this comparison apples to apples. SLS costs come from the shorter timeline, the expensive shortcuts like ultralightweight shell, H2 fuel, disposable design, the crew rating, and the profit paid to manufacturers. We still don't know the equivalent numbers for starship: how long the timeline will be, the cost of taking the same payload to TLI, if the heavy structure will ever work as a lunar lander, if the booster can be used with an H2 upper stage / lander alternative, if the fully reusable architecture will work for lunar missions (depends on refueling performance), and finally how much profit SpaceX will make on these government missions (which depends on the market).
If those problems are all solved, and SpaceX gives NASA a good price, then we could see starship emerging as the best value somewhere between 2030 and 2035. Solving them in time for Artemis IV 2028 seems very unlikely now though.
The mission architecture discussed in that video has already been scrapped.
In-orbit refueling will permit missions to the moon and beyond. This has been stated repeatedly.
> The very same groups are now crying about a potential monopoly.
Be a realist: we should be thankful they don't do it simultaneously.
I mean Falcon 9 is dead simply because the Neutron rocket will make it obsolete for small sat launches.
And obviously Falcon 9 was never really meant to be a moon rocket either so that is where New Glenn comes in.
Starship was always meant to be a Starlink launcher and everything else was a bonus.