Starship Flight 15 Reaches Orbit, Deploys 26 Starlink V3 Satellites

SpaceX’s Starship Flight 15 reached orbit and deployed a full load of Starlink V3 satellites. Via @SpaceX on X, the company said at 00:06 GMT on 14 November 2026: “Payload deploy complete. All 26 @Starlink V3 satellites are in orbit.”

The flight was the company’s first attempt to bring both stages back to the launch site for a catch. That plan only partly held. SpaceX later posted, “Landing burn and splashdown for Super Heavy Booster 22.” SpaceNews, in a 13 November report, said SpaceX was “forced to call off recovery of the Super Heavy booster.” The ship itself was still in orbit, and a catch at Starbase remained planned.

Starship Flight 15 put 26 Starlink V3 satellites in orbit

The SpaceX Flight 15 page listed a 75-minute launch window opening at 4:45 p.m. Central Time on 13 November (22:45 GMT). In a further post at 05:44 GMT on 14 November, SpaceX said the mission had got off to “a spectacular start… nearly 7 hours ago,” which places liftoff around the opening of that window. A separate liftoff post, “Liftoff of Starship Flight 15,” went out at 02:58 GMT on 14 November with photographs of the ascent; that timestamp is later than the launch itself.

The same official page set out the planned profile: an orbit of about 275 km, roughly 14 revolutions and a flight of more than 22 hours. SpaceX said each Starlink V3 satellite “will add 1 Terabit of capacity to the constellation,” with all 26 “equaling ~10 Starlink V2 Mini launches on Falcon 9.” After deployment, the satellites were to unfold antennas, deploy solar arrays, make contact with the ground and the rest of the constellation, then raise their orbits. “Following their on-orbit checkouts, the satellites should begin serving customers as soon as a few weeks after launch.” Those capacity and service lines are SpaceX’s claims, not an independent measurement of the new stack.

The deployment is the payload goal SpaceX had already attached to this vehicle. TSN covered the Flight 15 booster’s 33-engine static fire on 25 October, when a launch date had not yet been set. The 26 satellites now in orbit are the first public result of that campaign.

Super Heavy Booster 22 ended in a splashdown, not a catch

The Flight 15 page said the booster’s primary objective included a return to the launch site for catch, and that this would be “the first return and catch attempt for a Super Heavy V3 booster.” It also noted that three V1 boosters had been caught on earlier tests, with two later reflown. SpaceX’s own wording on 14 November does not describe a catch. It describes a landing burn and a splashdown for Booster 22. SpaceNews’s account, that recovery was called off, is the press description of that same outcome. SpaceX has not, in those posts, said why the catch was abandoned.

A splashdown is still a controlled end of the booster’s flight, but it is not the reuse milestone the company had set for the V3 first catch. That matters for the cadence SpaceX has already sketched for the FAA. In an earlier filing covered by TSN, the company said it expected launch rates that depend on rapid recovery, not on expending a Super Heavy in the water.

The ship catch was still planned, about 22.5 hours after launch

At 05:44 GMT on 14 November, SpaceX said: “Starship and its heatshield are healthy as the vehicle continues to orbit Earth after a spectacular start to its mission nearly 7 hours ago. Teams are continuing to monitor systems ahead of a planned return to launch site catch at Starbase ~22.5 hours after launch.”

That is a status report and a plan, not a result. The Flight 15 page had already said the ship would “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.” The 05:44 GMT post is the company saying those checks were still under way and that a catch remained the plan, about 22.5 hours after launch, at Starbase. Three of the newly deployed satellites, the same page said, carry cameras to scan the heatshield, one of several data sources for that decision.

The ship catch has been the hanging question around this flight for weeks. In mid-October, TSN noted Musk pointing to a first ship catch as Flight 15 was still being prepared. NASA is already counting on Starship as a Moon lander under a revised 2028 plan, in which a Starship would dock with Orion in Earth orbit and push it on to the Moon.

A healthy ship in orbit is not yet a catch at Starbase

Flight 15 did what the payload section of the plan asked: it reached orbit and put 26 Starlink V3 satellites there. That is a real result, and it is also the easier half of what SpaceX had put on the Flight 15 page. The 1 Terabit capacity figure and the promise that the new stack “should begin serving customers as soon as a few weeks after launch” remain company claims until the on-orbit checkouts are done. A successful deploy is not the same thing as those satellites already working for customers.

The booster half of the plan did not arrive. SpaceX had described a first catch attempt for a Super Heavy V3, after three V1 boosters had already been caught and two reflown. What the company posted instead was a landing burn and a splashdown. SpaceNews reported that recovery had been called off. Neither official post explains the decision, and a splashdown, even a controlled one, is not the reuse step the V3 catch was meant to be. That is why the earlier FAA cadence filing still hangs over the flight: high launch rates assume the booster comes back to the tower, not the water.

The ship is the open question, and it should stay open. SpaceX said the vehicle and its heatshield were healthy and that a return-to-launch-site catch at Starbase was planned about 22.5 hours after launch. It did not say the catch had been tried. The same official page had already reserved the right to skip the return if critical systems were not healthy. Until SpaceX posts an outcome, the accurate account is the one the company gave at 05:44 GMT on 14 November: a planned catch, not a completed one. Whether that attempt is made, and how it ends, is the next official fact to wait for.

Sources

• SpaceX, “Payload deploy complete. All 26 @Starlink V3 satellites are in orbit,” via @SpaceX on X, 00:06 GMT, 14 November 2026
• SpaceX, “Liftoff of Starship Flight 15,” via @SpaceX on X, 02:58 GMT, 14 November 2026
• SpaceX, “Landing burn and splashdown for Super Heavy Booster 22,” via @SpaceX on X, 03:07 GMT, 14 November 2026
• SpaceX, “Starship and its heatshield are healthy… planned return to launch site catch at Starbase ~22.5 hours after launch,” via @SpaceX on X, 05:44 GMT, 14 November 2026
• SpaceX, “Starship Flight 15” mission page
• Jeff Foust, SpaceNews, “Starship launches on 15th test, calls off booster catch,” 13 November 2026

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