Musk Says the Next Starship Flight Will Try the First Ship Catch, “Probably About Four Weeks or So” Away

Elon Musk says SpaceX’s next Starship flight will try to catch the rocket’s upper stage, the ship, for the first time. Speaking in a virtual interview on Saturday 10 October 2026, he said: “we don’t know the exact launch date, but probably about four weeks or so. Four to six weeks is about right. Probably launches a little bit before Thanksgiving is my guess.” [1][2]

CEO STATEMENT: this is what Musk said, not a SpaceX schedule. SpaceX has published no Flight 15 date or mission profile.

Livestreamed by @teslaownersSV on X

Where he said it

The interview, titled “What Comes Next for Humanity”, was shown at the X Takeover fan event at Giga Texas in Austin. Tesla Owners Silicon Valley hosted it and streamed it live on X [1][2]. When the host joked about Musk’s habit of saying “two weeks”, Musk replied: “I’m confident it’s not two weeks.” [1]

What a ship catch is

Starship has two parts. The lower part is the Super Heavy booster, which lifts the rocket off the ground. The upper part is the ship, which goes on to orbit. SpaceX already catches the booster: it flies back to the launch tower, and two large mechanical arms on the tower grab it out of the air instead of letting it land on legs.

A ship catch would do the same for the upper stage after it returns from orbit. That is harder, because the ship has to survive re-entry through the atmosphere first.

Musk said: “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.” [1]

Why full reuse matters

Most rockets are thrown away, in whole or in part, after one flight. Getting both stages back intact is the first step towards flying the same hardware again, much like an airliner. That could cut the cost of each launch sharply. Musk said the next goal is to fly recovered parts again: “the flight after that hopefully will be the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket are reflown.” [1] Whether the catch works is not certain. Musk himself said the flight would be “a big one” only “if it succeeds” [1].

What happened on Flight 14

Flight 14 launched on 28 September 2026 from Starbase in Texas, reached orbit and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, as reported by TeslaNorth, citing SpaceX’s recap [2]. One engine shut down early. Musk said “the cause of the engine out I think was like basically a failure in the flight computer software or engine computer software I should say”, adding: “It didn’t appear to be anything that was present in any of the other engine computers.” [1]

He called the glitch “pretty easy to remedy” and said “the heat shield was extremely robust on this flight” [1]. He said SpaceX still has changes to make before the next launch, some of which need work inside the tanks [1].

SpaceX has not posted a firm Flight 15 launch date [2].

Sources

1. Elon Musk, “What Comes Next for Humanity”, interview at X Takeover, Giga Texas, 10 October 2026, transcript. https://elonmuskarchive.org/video/elon-musk-what-comes-next-for-humanity-2026-10
2. TeslaNorth, “Elon Targets Starship Flight 15 Ship Catch in 4–6 Weeks”, 10 October 2026. https://teslanorth.com/2026/10/10/elon-targets-starship-flight-15-ship-catch-in-4-6-weeks/
3. SpaceX, Starship Flight 14 page. https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-14/
4. Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV), livestream on X. https://x.com/teslaownersSV

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