SpaceX is set to conduct its upcoming Starship mission on Friday, which will mark the first attempt to recover the spacecraft at its launch location in Texas, rather than letting it fall into the ocean. This represents a crucial step in Elon Musk’s goal of developing a fully reusable rocket system.
The Starship rocket, towering at 124 meters, is slated for launch at 5:45 p.m. ET from SpaceX’s Starbase facilities in South Texas. This flight will be the 15th since 2023 and the second to deploy a set of operational Starlink satellites. Thus, the mission serves as both a revenue-generating venture for its satellite connectivity business and a significant test for a rocket that is still under development.
As of Friday morning, SpaceX had yet to obtain a launch permit from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Typically, the FAA has issued these licenses a day before previous Starship launches; however, they did not provide immediate comment on the matter.
Elon Musk’s aerospace and AI enterprise considers the next-gen Starship rocket vital for enhancing its Starlink network with additional satellites and, in the future, launching a large array of AI data-processing satellites referred to as Starmind. The company is increasingly positioning itself as a significant player in infrastructure.
SpaceX’s last Starship launch occurred in September, achieving the rocket’s and its satellites’ first orbital mission, despite some engines failing mid-flight. Initially planned to last 10 hours, the mission 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 upcoming mission, SpaceX plans to recover both the Super Heavy booster and the upper stage of the Starship, which it will launch into space. The upper stage, which functions as the spacecraft’s top half, is expected to return approximately 22 hours post-launch. SpaceX has indicated that success in this endeavor would signify a “breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket.”
Preparing for Starship
SpaceX has successfully returned the 71-meter-tall Super Heavy booster to its launchpad on three occasions after launching Starship into space. This has involved the booster descending vertically into large mechanical arms attached to its launch tower roughly 10 minutes after liftoff, with the most recent “catch” taking place in March 2025.
For this 15th mission, SpaceX will need to clear the Super Heavy booster from the launchpad to accommodate Starship, which is anticipated to re-enter the atmosphere after completing 14 orbits around Earth. This sets the stage for the inaugural Starship catch to take place around 3:45 p.m. ET on Saturday.
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Musk has indicated that he anticipates a weekly launch schedule for Starship to commence by the first half of 2027, while SpaceX has suggested that it could start launching from a new site in Florida by late 2026.
NASA has provided substantial funding for Starship’s development, with approximately $3.2 billion USD allocated to SpaceX since choosing the rocket in 2021 to act as a lunar lander for its Artemis moon program. SpaceX has committed at least $15 billion USD of its own capital towards the rocket’s advancement.
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.
Both NASA and SpaceX aim for Starship to facilitate human landings on the moon by 2028, although numerous significant testing milestones remain, which analysts and industry experts believe may delay that timeline.
These milestones include proving complex fuel transfers between Starship “tanker” rockets in orbit—a vital procedure that will enable Starship to venture beyond Earth’s orbit toward the moon.
Additionally, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin is developing a lunar lander named Blue Moon for NASA as part of the Artemis program. Blue Moon is expected to join Starship and NASA’s Orion capsule in Earth’s orbit next year for Artemis III, a docking test mission preceding NASA’s planned lunar landing missions with Artemis IV.