SpaceX’s forthcoming Starship launch, set for Friday, will mark its inaugural attempt to retrieve the spacecraft at its Texas launch site instead of allowing it to fall into the ocean — a significant test of Elon Musk’s vision for a fully reusable rocket system.
The 124-meter-tall Starship rocket is planned to lift off at 5:45 p.m. ET from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities in South Texas. This will be the 15th flight since 2023 and the second mission to deploy a set of operational Starlink satellites. This mission serves as both a revenue-generating initiative for its satellite connectivity operations and a critical test for a rocket that remains under development.
As of Friday morning, SpaceX had yet to receive a launch permit from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Historically, the FAA has issued licenses a day before previous Starship launches, but they did not provide an immediate comment on the matter.
Musk’s aerospace and AI powerhouse considers the next-generation Starship rocket vital for enhancing its Starlink network with additional satellites and, in the future, deploying a large fleet of AI data-processing satellites known as Starmind, as the company increasingly positions itself as a major infrastructure player.
SpaceX’s last Starship launch occurred in September, successfully sending the rocket and its satellites into orbit for the first time, despite experiencing some engine failures mid-flight. This mission, originally intended to last 10 hours, concluded after approximately three hours with a successful splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX astounded engineers, scientists, and space enthusiasts by returning its heaviest rocket booster back to its launch pad intact. Beyond the technical marvel of the Starship rocket, reusability is expected to dramatically cut back on mission costs.
For the mission on Friday, the company anticipates retrieving both the Super Heavy booster of Starship and the upper stage that will be launched into space. The upper stage — the rocket’s top half that functions as the spacecraft — is expected to return approximately 22 hours post-launch. SpaceX has stated that if everything goes according to plan, it would represent a “breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket.”
Preparing for Starship
Following previous launches where the 71-meter-tall Super Heavy booster was successfully returned three times to its launchpad after deploying Starship, it fell back vertically into large mechanical arms attached to its launch tower about 10 minutes after liftoff. The most recent “tower catch” took place in March 2025.
For this 15th mission, SpaceX will need to remove the Super Heavy booster from the launchpad to accommodate Starship, which is expected to descend from space after completing 14 orbits around Earth. This sets the stage for the inaugural Starship catch, likely to happen around 3:45 p.m. ET on Saturday.
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Musk has indicated that he aims to establish a weekly schedule of Starship launches by the first half of 2027, while SpaceX has mentioned the possibility of initiating Starship launches from a new Florida launch site by late 2026.
NASA has contributed approximately $3.2 billion US towards the development of Starship since selecting the rocket in 2021 to function as a moon lander for astronauts under the multibillion-dollar Artemis program. In addition, SpaceX has invested at least $15 billion US of its own resources into the rocket’s development.
Social media video recorded in Turks and Caicos shows debris streaking across the sky after the new Starship rocket broke up during a test flight.
NASA and SpaceX anticipate that Starship will be capable of landing humans on the moon by 2028, although several significant testing milestones remain, which analysts and industry experts believe may delay that timeline.
These milestones involve demonstrating intricate fuel transfers between Starship “tanker” rockets in orbit — a vital process that will enable Starship to venture beyond Earth’s orbit to the moon.
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is also working on developing a moon lander, named Blue Moon, for NASA as part of the Artemis program. Blue Moon is set to join Starship and NASA’s Orion capsule in Earth’s orbit next year for Artemis III, a docking test mission that precedes NASA’s planned moon landing missions starting with Artemis IV.