Starship reaches orbit with 26 Starlink V3 satellites; ship catch possible Saturday

SpaceX's 15th Starship flight put 26 satellites in orbit, but the booster was lost in the Gulf. An upper-stage catch is possible Saturday.

SpaceX launched its 15th Starship test flight from Starbase, Texas, on the evening of Friday, November 13, on schedule and in calm weather. The first stage flew cleanly and released the upper stage over the Gulf of Mexico. The ship then lit its Raptor engines and reached a nominal orbit. It is the second time SpaceX has flown Starship to low-Earth orbit.

The main goal was deployment. About 40 minutes into the flight, the ship released 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and all 26 reached orbit. Each has solar panels roughly 60 meters wide when fully deployed, and they will use onboard propulsion to climb to their working altitude.

The booster did not go as hoped. Booster 22 was told to divert into the Gulf instead of returning to the tower for a catch, because of an issue SpaceX has not specified, and it exploded on impact. SpaceX wanted to recover and refurbish it for reflight. It has reflown boosters before, but not yet the version 3 design, so that goal was missed.

Why it matters: cheap access to orbit depends on fully reusable super-heavy launch. Reuse of the booster and the ship is what turns a rocket from a consumable into something closer to an airliner. Putting a large batch of satellites into orbit in one launch shows the capacity side of that. Recovery is the cost side, and it is still unproven for this booster version.

What to watch: SpaceX has never tried to catch an upper stage. An attempt is possible Saturday at about 3:15 pm Texas time (21:15 UTC), but only if the ship passes a series of in-orbit and reentry health checks, because it would fly over parts of Mexico and the United States. If it fails them, SpaceX has earlier options to de-orbit it into an ocean. Heat shield changes, including extra tile retention and curved tiles, will be tested on reentry.

Source: Ars Technica