When will Starship Flight 15 launch? Possible date for SpaceX’s most ambitious flight test revealed

We might see SpaceX launch Starship again in less than two weeks. According to new information shared by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the current target date for Starship’s 15th integrated test flight is November 12, pending regulatory approval. SpaceX has planned to catch both stages of Starship using the launch tower. The first-stage Super Heavy booster has been caught multiple times, but Flight 15 will require a specific license for a recovery of the upper stage. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said earlier this month that she expects the license to include “a return to the launch site and tower catch for both stages.”

As of today, a static fire test of both the booster and the upper stage, Ship 42, has been completed in preparation for the next mission. “As the prophecy foretold, Starship 42 will be the first tower catch,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk posted on X on Thursday. The plan for the next test mission is likely to be similar to Flight 14, which saw Starship enter a stable low Earth orbit for the first time. After lifting off from Starbase, Texas, and separating from the booster, the upper stage reached an altitude of approximately 170 miles (275 kilometers). It also deployed the first batch of Starlink V3 satellites to strengthen the satellite internet network.

SpaceX has been working toward increasing its launch cadence starting early next year, when it will refly the upper stage. According to a document it submitted to the FAA, the company said it wants to launch 10,000 Starships per year by 2035. Musk said on X that these 10,000 launches will be just from Starbase Louisiana—SpaceX’s $100 billion upcoming new spaceport. Starbase Louisiana is also supposed to launch 30 Starships per day, according to the billionaire. The first Starship launch from the new spaceport is expected to take place in 2028 or 2029.

SpaceX is also constructing a new launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and according to Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science and Dragon programs at SpaceX, the preparations are going ‘super well.’ Two more Starship launch pads are under construction at Cape Canaveral that may enable dozens of missions per week. Preparations are also underway for Flight 16, which is likely to launch from the pad at the Kennedy Space Center. Earlier this week, Ship 43 for Flight 16 was also moved to Pad 2 at Starbase, reportedly for fit checks and lifting tests on the launch tower.

Interestingly, SpaceX recently approached the FAA with its intent to perform 456 Starship launches and 912 landings from Starbase. It currently has approval for 25 annual launches from Texas and twice that number of landings. Next year, SpaceX will also launch missions with the objective of on-orbit refueling of the rocket, which is necessary for missions to the Moon. The refueling efforts are primarily to support NASA’s Artemis program, which needs Starship to land astronauts on the lunar surface. For the moment, SpaceX is focused on preparing a Starship lander for the Artemis III mission to perform rendezvous and docking operations with NASA’s Orion spacecraft in Earth orbit. If all goes well with Artemis III, Starship will perform a docking with Orion in lunar orbit and take astronauts to the Moon during Artemis IV in 2028.

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