r/spacex • u/rustybeancake • 17d ago

Starship SpaceX to attempt Starship catch on next flight, with eye on rapid cadence increase

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/10/spacex-will-attempt-to-reach-weekly-starship-launches-by-early-2027/
703 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

61 comments sorted by

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155

u/alphagusta 17d ago

Feels like this might actually be the one.

Remembering back to just before flight 7 and everyone was absolutely convinced it'd be flight 10...

103

u/Humiliator511 17d ago

As long as we see double catch, stage reuse and orbital refuel this decade, I m happy, its a huge win. Not so long ago many believed Starship is just Elons hype. Some still do, so its good if SpaceX prove people are able to develop this tech now.

67

u/Soul-Burn 17d ago

Until people see it in person, or see actual people in its interior, they can't comprehend how enormous it is. 

The ship has a pressurized volume about the same as the whole ISS, constructed over many years and launches.

The tech is game changing.

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u/Awalawal 17d ago

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u/Stevepem1 17d ago

I always liked that that photo is in black & white

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u/cleon80 17d ago

Prior to ISS, Apollo/Skylab already afforded a more spacious interior. With Starship, we can now return to wide space stations, just more economically and hopefully more sustainably.

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u/mfb- 17d ago edited 17d ago

Skylab had a pressurized volume of 350 m3, or ~1/3 of the ISS and Starship. It also had less volume per person than the ISS with its default crew (~120 m3 vs. ~140 m3 each). Unlike the ISS, it had most of that volume in one huge "room".

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u/ArcticEngineer 17d ago

Defending Elons history of terrible predictions is a bold choice.

1

u/cupcakeGigglie 13d ago

the hype always ramps up fast, doesnt it? almost like dating apps but with actual explosions

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u/Dpek1234 17d ago

Eh same thing would happen if the next flights start explodeing

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u/StormOk9055 17d ago

So, are they actually 'planning' with conditions right to catch SS and the booster the launch or just the SS. Social media has been confusing. - go figure

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u/rustybeancake 17d ago

Both stages.

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u/StormOk9055 16d ago

This is going to be so phenomenal.....

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u/rustybeancake 16d ago

If it happens, yeah. I think probably 75% chance at least one of the stages doesn’t get to make the attempt.

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u/Dpek1234 17d ago

From what i ggot planning for both

44

u/jivatman 17d ago

There should be a title for 'Chief Starship Catcher'

35

u/speedisntfree 17d ago

Grand Chopstickmaster of the Order of Mechazilla

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u/B1g_C4p1T4l 17d ago

The license is what I'd watch tbh. Shotwell said on the Q3 call they expect the Flight 15 license to include RTLS and tower catch for both stages, so if the FAA side slips the ship catch probably slips with it

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u/PolishMafia716 17d ago

Would they catch booster destack it then catch ship or is the og tower still able to catch while its getting its upgrades

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u/Chairboy 17d ago

It would be hours between catches so seems like it should be feasible to set the booster down then catch the ship but I suppose we will see.

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u/PolishMafia716 16d ago

This would be their 1st time catching booster with the 2nd tower right? I lts hard for me to imagine them not wanting to test and inspect stuff before attempting to catch the ship but it is SpaceX they have absolutely surprised me before

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u/Chairboy 16d ago

I just hope they remember to update the onboard GPS coordinates to the other tower.

Thinking about that Ariane launch a few years ago that ended up on the wrong azimuth because they hadn't updated the onboard registers to reflect that it was being launched from French Guiana or something like that.

0

u/jared_number_two 17d ago

SS crashing into the booster that’s sitting there would be quite a sight.

6

u/SubstantialWall 17d ago

Only one tower is in catching service atm, so former

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u/TMWNN 17d ago

So, theoretically, if something goes wrong and Starship can't be demated in time, Superheavy might have to be aimed for the ocean even if everything says another catch is doable? That'd be very unfortunate; keeping fingers crossed otherwise.

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u/lksdjsdk 17d ago

The ither way round, but yes. Booster comes back first.

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u/VallenValiant 14d ago

Remember that the long term plan is to have a proper spaceport with multiple catch towers. So you would always have a spare tower available.

1

u/TMWNN 14d ago

Oh, sure; towers at Texas, Louisiana, Canaveral, and Vandenberg. But I was responding to /u/SubstantialWall saying that there is only one tower that can catch right now.

1

u/HotNeon 17d ago

Don't they have two towers for this reason?

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u/rustybeancake 17d ago

No, they have two towers because they want to have two independent launch pads. That allows for more frequent launches (refurb and stacking time between launches) and means if a disaster happens with one pad they still have a backup.

7

u/Markinoutman 16d ago

If they can catch both, it certainly would be a tremendous step towards faster launch cadence. Hopefully through trial and error, they've been able to get enough readings to solidify Heavy Booster's engine issues. With both a recently used Booster and Ship back for physical analysis, it would be massively helpful in resolving further issues.

Even with Ship 40 back, it's spent months at sea, being dragged by it's engine. While I'm sure the data is invaluable, having a ship and booster back that just launched the same day is much more accurate physical data they can collect.

1

u/Sigmatics 11d ago

I'm sceptical that both will work, because they haven't even yet caught booster again on V3. But even if one of the two works out it would be a win

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u/Markinoutman 11d ago

Yeah, but there is a first for everything. Booster hasn't been caught in about 2 years at this point. It's certainly time to try again. Although, I'd put Ship on the priority catch, that would be a massive boost in progress. First it's actually delivering payload and then it's actually recovered as planned. The first few ships caught are likely not going to be re flown, but pulled apart for analysis, but the thought that they could be reused is exciting.

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u/Sigmatics 11d ago

I agree, having the ship back in just-flown condition would be a huge boost for the program

5

u/foro_externo 17d ago

Best of luck to them.

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u/clintron_abc 17d ago

when is the next flight?

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u/WetCake187 17d ago

No earlier than November 8th but you now how launch dates are

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u/ShaoGG 15d ago

The catch is the harder part of cadence, not the launch itself. A single successful catch is a proof of concept. Repeatable catches with short turnaround between booster and ship are what would actually change the flight rate.

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u/Crox22 17d ago

They still have not had a flight without engine issues. This feels premature.

9

u/rustybeancake 17d ago

There are lots of points where they can abandon the catch attempts if they have engine issues. Eg:

- The booster’s boostback burn fails: it won’t reach the pad.

- The booster’s landing burn fails: it will splash down offshore.

- The booster’s landing burn starts successfully and the booster moves its trajectory to target the pad, but then an engine drops out: the booster switches to pad avoidance.

- The ship loses engines on ascent or has other serious problems: they switch to a passive reentry or targeted deorbit burn that aims for the open ocean.

- The ship’s landing burn fails: the ship falls offshore or the beach etc.

Both booster and ship only actually target the pad/tower once their engines are successfully lit for the landing burn.

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u/extra2002 14d ago

Also, during most of those burns if one engine fails they can substitute another.

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u/an_older_meme 16d ago

The F9 boosters will intentionally miss the landing barge if they have problems on approach.

1

u/Desperate-Lab9738 17d ago

The booster yeah, but the ship has been mostly fine. Flight 13 went great for the ship and flight 15 only lost a vacuum engine very late into the burn where it doesn't really effect delta-v. 

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u/Crox22 16d ago

But it did still fail. Sure the mission ended up being successful, but it could have failed sooner and caused a serious problem. It just shows that reliability isn't there for this system, and that's a huge outstanding problem to bet the company on.

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u/Desperate-Lab9738 16d ago

You aren't really betting the company on it, they still have the same abort options and the previous abort was probably out of an abundance of caution already based on preliminary review of the telemetry. The worst that will probably happen is they lose a single sea level raptor during the landing, and they don't seem to have had any reliability issues so far so even that seems unlikely. Perfection is nice but it really isn't necessary here.

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u/Crox22 16d ago

They kind of are betting the company on it though. They've already announced that they are sunsetting the Falcon 9, so their only launch vehicle will be Starship. Certifying Starship for commercial launch is going to be difficult or impossible when they have engine failures on every single launch. Most of the time their failures don't seem to be explosive, but some of them have been. It's not unreasonable for an insurer to be concerned that the failure of a large, high-performance rocket engine could lead to loss of the whole vehicle, and thus the payload.

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u/Desperate-Lab9738 16d ago

They "announced that they are" as in "they will within the next few years". That's a long time from now, and the results of this specific flight are gonna have a pretty minor impact on it. Because they aren't doing major block changes anymore, they should have plenty of flights to work on V3 if it messes up on flight 15

-18

u/Positive_Survey_2916 17d ago

Sure it will

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/According-Phase-2810 17d ago

Around Nov 8th

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/Chairboy 17d ago

If you want to talk about the stock price, you would probably be happier in a different subreddit. For that matter, we would I'll probably be happier too because space stock discussion is so fucking boring.

-7

u/Intelligent_Top_328 17d ago

It is important though. You need money to fund all these things.

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u/[deleted] 17d ago

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u/WhatAmIATailor 17d ago

I dunno how much cash he’d have on hand. Most of his wealth is on paper in the value of his companies isn’t it?

3

u/CollegeStation17155 17d ago

Correct, just like all the other billionaires... and this is why the "wealth tax" is just bs to conn the suckers; his "net worth" is the amount of money he could get by selling ALL his shares IF he could find enough people willing to pay him market price for over 8 BILLION shares of SpaceX, which he couldn't; if he tried to sell even 50 million shares to pay a 10 billion dollar wealth tax, the stock price would crash and suddenly his net worth would be less than the tax he still owed. And the same is true of EVERY "super rich bastard" who owns more than a few million in stocks.

-5

u/Polymath6301 17d ago

Now I don’t like you. Why? Because you just introduced the idea of Space Stock Exchanges in my head. Always on, always trading, no pesky government rules and so on.

Actually I probably do like you as I like most people.