SpaceX finally Catching Both Starship and Booster in mid-air! Flight 13 will be Crazy...

Catching the Starship upper stage with Mechazilla's chopsticks is one of the major milestones SpaceX is pushing hard to achieve in 2026. This isn't just about proving full reusability. It's a critical step toward orbital refueling, the technology that could accelerate Starship HLS missions to the moon. So, the big question is when will SpaceX actually attempt to catch the ship? Could it happen as early as flight 12? Let's break it all down in today's episode of AlphaTech. Here we are on the final day of 2025, a remarkable year in which SpaceX hit an impressive number of milestones in the Starship program. Despite flying only five missions in total, they successfully deployed dummy Starlink payloads twice and achieved two successful Superheavy landings caught by Mechazilla. In fact, SpaceX could have completed several more booster catches, but because they reuse boosters twice, they opted for ocean splashdowns instead, prioritizing the safety of the launch tower. Overall, most of the progress this year has centered on Super Heavy. But what about Starship itself? It has yet to be caught by the tower's chopsticks, and it has never been reused even once. So, why is that? The answer is pretty simple. Starship still isn't stable enough. From flight 7 through flight 9, SpaceX went through three consecutive ship failures with the vehicle breaking apart mid-flight. Only the last two missions managed to get Starship through the spaceflight phase successfully. But even then, both vehicles returned in a weakened state due to heat shield issues. Because of that, SpaceX wasn't willing to take the risk of attempting a catch, not even once. That's why 2026 is so important. With Starship moving to version three, featuring stronger, more robust design changes, this goal is almost certainly within reach. But will SpaceX attempt to land both Superheavy and Starship in the upcoming flight 12? Definitely not. Elon Musk himself hinted back in October that Starship catch is probably flight 13 to 15, depending on how well V3 flights go. And if that holds true, it's actually very good news. Flight 12 is essentially a test flight for new hardware and software, meaning SpaceX won't fully know where the weak points are until that mission flies. Logically speaking, Starship hasn't even reached orbit yet. So, SpaceX is likely to push its limits on flight 12, but not attempt a tower catch. If Starship can survive re-entry and perform a clean ocean splashdown on that flight, then flight 13 could be truly historic, catching both Superheavy and Starship with Mechazilla at pad 2. Flight 13 is currently expected around late March or early April, assuming booster 20 and ship 40 are completed on time. And given that booster 19 was finished in just 28 days, that timeline looks very achievable. If that holds true, this is how flight 13 could play out. After liftoff from pad B, boo booster 20, the second Block 3 Superheavy, powered by 33 Raptor 3 engines with higher thrust and an optimized structure would push the entire stack skyward with nearly 9,300 tons of thrust. Stage separation via hot staging would occur around T plus0 hours, 2 minutes, and 39 seconds as Superheavy shuts down and ship 40 ignites its nine Raptor engines, six sea level, and three vacuum to continue ascent. Immediately after separation, booster B20 would execute its boost back burn, turning back toward the launch site. About 6 to 7 minutes after liftoff, it would begin its landing burn using a new profile, igniting roughly 13 center engines. then throttling down to just three for precision, guiding itself straight toward Mechazilla at pad B. If everything goes smoothly, the chopsticks would catch the booster cleanly, hold it on the tower for a few hours to cool down, then lower it, and transport it back to Mega Bay for rapid refurbishment. Meanwhile, ship 40 would continue on to full orbit. It would deploy a test payload potentially up to around 30 dummy Starlinks or equivalent test mass thanks to the extra performance of Raptor 3, perform multiple inspace engine relights to demonstrate orbital maneuvers, and then begin re-entry on a return to launch site trajectory. Around t + 1 hour 6 minutes to t + 1 hour 8 minutes. The ship would execute its flip maneuver, perform a powerful landing burn, slow its descent to just a few meters/s and make history as the first SpaceX vehicle ever caught by Mechazilla rather than splashing down in the Indian Ocean like before. If successful, Flight 13 would be a truly historic milestone, marking the biggest leap yet towards Starship's original goal, becoming the world's first fully reusable orbital rocket system. That means full reusability of both the Superheavy booster and the Starship upper stage. A breakthrough like this wouldn't just be big for SpaceX, it would send shock waves across the entire aerospace industry. We've seen this story before. Back when rockets were strictly expendable, SpaceX introduced Falcon 9, a partially reusable launcher. Almost overnight, the entire industry scrambled to follow suit, trying to replicate Elon Musk's approach. Projects like Rocket Labs Neutron, Blue Origin's New Shepard, and New Glenn all grew out of that shift. And to be fair, it worked. Launch costs dropped dramatically from hundreds of millions of dollars to around $67 million per flight. But after flight 13, history could repeat itself. Only this time in a much bolder way. Fully reusable Starship could drive launch costs down below 10 million per mission while boosting payload capacity to as much as 150 tons to low Earth orbit powered by the sheer force of Raptor engines. And by eliminating heavy landing legs altogether, Starship saves multiple tons of mass. Compared to drone ship landings used by Falcon 9 and planned for New Glenn, which require 3 to 7 days just to transport a booster back to shore for inspection and refurbishment. Catching the vehicle directly at the launch site, changes everything. It enables rapid turnaround at a completely different scale, and that speed is essential. Without it, missions like building a moon base or a Mars base simply don't work. Using Starship, those goals could realistically be achieved in just a couple of years. Try doing the same thing with New Glenn and you're looking at decades. What do you think? If you agree, drop a one in the comments and let's hope Starship gets caught sooner rather than later. However, despite landing with Mechazilla representing the pinnacle of reusable launch technology, it comes with some serious drawbacks. The biggest issue is its total reliance on complex ground infrastructure along with the high risks associated with having no truly safe alternative landing environment. Specifically, if Superheavy or Starship is forced to splash down at sea due to technical issues or bad weather, the risk of a rapid unscheduled disassembly increases dramatically. And even if the vehicle survives, seawater can quickly seep through small gaps, causing severe corrosion to electronics and the stainless steel structure, which can only tolerate saltwater exposure for a very limited time. We've seen this before. Booster 11 from flight 4 in 2024 was recovered by the ship host ridge wind after splashing down in the Gulf of America. But within just a few days, it had effectively turned into a pile of rusted scrap with corrosion layers reaching roughly 0.5 to 1 mm thick. A similar fate hit booster 13 from flight 6 in 2024, where multiple Raptor engine components suffered permanent damage due to salt contamination. Moreover, the biggest risk lies with the chopsticks themselves. Any error in guidance or mechanical execution, even a software glitch causing a positional offset of just one or two meters could result in a direct impact with the launch tower, potentially inflicting catastrophic damage to the entire pad. We've already seen how destructive padside failures can be. On June 18th, 2025, ship 36 exploded at Massiey's test site after a nitrogen COPV failed during a static fire test. The blast destroyed the flame trench and surrounding infrastructure, delaying flight 10 by at least 2 months and costing an estimated 10 to20 million to rebuild. Now, to be fair, SpaceX is moving toward a multi-tower launch architecture, meaning that even if one pad is taken offline, there are still up to four others in development. But a single accident can still be enormously expensive with repair costs easily reaching 50 to 100 million per incident while also delaying critical missions. And when it comes to projects like building a lunar base, every month of delay compounds the problem. That's why SpaceX still needs flexible backup options, ensuring long-term resilience and sustainability for the Starship program. At this point, many people argue that SpaceX should reconsider a more conventional landing method, one they've already perfected with Falcon 9, landing on autonomous drone ships at sea. There's no denying how impressive it is to watch a rocket land itself on a small floating platform in the middle of the ocean. It showcases incredible guidance and control, and it helps ease the load on increasingly crowded land-based launch sites. But as we mentioned earlier, drone ship landings aren't ideal when Spac X is pushing critical high tempmpo missions. They're far better suited for satellite launches. More importantly, drone ship landings require landing legs. Starship did have landing legs in earlier concepts, but they were removed to cut mass and better integrate with the Mechazilla catch system. Bringing landing legs back would reintroduce familiar challenges, minimizing mass and reducing refurbishment time, similar to the trade-off SpaceX already faces with Falcon 9. That said, the benefits of landing legs can't be ignored. They are absolutely essential for missions to other worlds. On the moon or Mars, stable and adaptive landing mechanisms are critical given the rough terrain, loose rocks, and fractured surfaces. Elon Musk himself emphasized this back in 2023. Responding to a SpaceX tweet showing synchronized Falcon Heavy booster landings, Musk said, "And that's how we'll land on Mars." That statement highlights not only the importance of landing legs, but also SpaceX's broader long-term vision. Simple as they may seem, landing legs are fundamental to safe landings beyond Earth. For lunar missions, SpaceX has already revealed early landing leg concepts through Starship HLS prototypes. These include both folding and fixed leg designs, each tailored to the moon's unique environment, low gravity, fine dust, and potentially hazardous slopes. As for Mars missions, details remain tightly guarded. However, many expect Spac X to reveal more in the near future, especially as timelines for the first uncrrewed Starship missions to Mars draw closer. Musk has suggested such missions could happen within the next 2 years. Mars with higher gravity than the moon and far more demanding surface conditions will require even more robust and adaptable landing solutions. But that's the longerterm vision. In the near term, handling the massive launch cadence SpaceX is aiming for will likely require a mix of different landing strategies, not just one single solution. Beyond tower catches and drone ship landings, SpaceX also has a third option, one that's simpler and easier to execute, so-called expendable landings. In this scenario, both the Superheavy booster and Starship would not be reused, instead descending into pre-desated zones in the Atlantic Ocean. It's obviously not ideal and it runs counter to SpaceX's core philosophy of reusability, but it serves as a critical fallback option for special cases or emergency situations.