On Saturday, SpaceX’s advanced Starship spacecraft orbited the Earth, approaching the conclusion of its 15th test flight. The company aimed for an extraordinary landing back in Texas, precisely at the launch site.
The uncrewed upper section of Starship is set to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere following nearly a full day in orbit. It will navigate back to its launch tower and execute a controlled descent, ultimately being caught by large mechanical arms designed to secure the spacecraft above the launchpad.
Should this endeavor succeed, it would represent the first successful round-trip journey of a vertically launched spacecraft, returning to the exact launch location, thus achieving a significant milestone in Elon Musk’s long-standing ambition of developing a fully reusable rocket system.
The colossal two-stage rocket’s Super Heavy booster, which forms the lower portion of the spacecraft, propelled Starship into space on Friday from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas. Unfortunately, this booster failed to return to the launch pad approximately ten minutes after takeoff due to a navigation malfunction, thwarting SpaceX’s objective of retrieving both sections of the rocket for the first time.
Currently cruising at an altitude of about 260 kilometers, Starship is anticipated to complete 14 orbits around the planet over a total flight duration of 22 hours and 32 minutes.
The 15th flight of Starship, occurring since 2023, has become the longest mission to date, surpassing the roughly three-hour journey of its 14th flight in September, during which it achieved orbit for the first time.
SpaceX has invested nearly a decade in the development of Starship, which billionaire CEO Elon Musk envisions as the essential vehicle for the company’s satellite operations and aspirations to send humans to the Moon and eventually to Mars.
The company’s leading position in the global launch industry has primarily been established through its Falcon 9 rocket, which has executed over 700 launches since 2010. While the first stage of that rocket is reusable, the second stage, responsible for placing payloads into orbit, is discarded into the ocean after each mission.
Starship’s Super Heavy booster has been successfully retrieved on three prior test flights utilizing the launch-tower catching mechanism, with the most recent successful catch occurring in March 2025. Since then, the company has not achieved another landing, either opting to submerge it in Gulf waters or facing onboard issues.