SpaceX finally Catching Both Starship Stages—Can the Tower Handle It?

For flight 15, which we expect to happen next month, we're going to attempt to catch both the booster and the ship. If we succeed, it will be the first time that an orbital launch vehicle has been fully recovered. Elon Musk has confirmed the launch window for Starship's 15th flight, and SpaceX has some pretty ambitious plans for this mission. The biggest goal is that they want to catch not just the Super Heavy booster, but Starship itself as well. And this is actually a much bigger challenge than you might think, because there are so many things to figure out. Can the launch tower handle catching both stages during the same flight? Will SpaceX need to make changes or come up with some new maneuvers to make it work? There are a lot of interesting stuff to unpack here, so let's take a look at what Starship Flight 15 could look like. Okay, before we get into how SpaceX plans to catch both stages of Starship, there's one big question we need to answer first. Are they actually ready to be caught? To figure that out, let's take a quick look back at Flight 14, because there are a few important things from that flight that could tell us what to expect from the next one. Let's start with the ship. After completing its mission in space, Starship re-entered Earth's atmosphere, relying on its heat shield to protect it from the extreme temperatures. It then began its landing maneuver over the ocean. And thanks to the latest drone footage released by SpaceX, we got a much better look at what happened next. We can see the ship rotating from its belly flop position toward a vertical orientation, firing its Raptor engines, and descending toward the water. And honestly, it looked remarkably stable right up until splashdown, when it tipped over and was destroyed. Remember, Flight 14 was testing an ocean splashdown, not an actual tower catch. So, the goal wasn't to bring the ship back safely onto the launch tower just yet. What matters is that Starship successfully demonstrated its ability to transition from the belly flop position to vertical flight and use its sea-level Raptor engines to control its descent. Of course, there's still a big difference between controlling your descent over the ocean and hitting a precise target next to the launch tower. But there's another part of Flight 14 worth looking at – the heat shield. The newly released footage suggests that much of the heat shield remained in good condition after reentry. We also saw two reused tiles that appeared to have survived another flight. And this matters because Starship needs to survive the heat of reentry, before it can even think about returning to the launch tower. The more durable the heat shield becomes, the less repair work the ship should need between flights. And that's a crucial part of making Starship rapidly reusable. Now, what about the booster? After stage separation, the Super Heavy booster performed its flip maneuver and successfully relit 31 of its planned 33 Raptor engines for the boost-back burn. It then returned toward the launch site and completed a controlled splashdown in the ocean before its Flight Termination System, or FTS, activated. In case you're wondering, the FTS is a safety system designed to destroy a vehicle when required. Since the booster wasn't being recovered by the launch tower on this flight, the ocean splashdown was the end of its test. But the real improvement here was that the booster achieved a much softer, more controlled splashdown rather than the harder ocean impacts seen during earlier V3 test flights. And that's important because, before SpaceX can catch the booster, it needs to demonstrate that the vehicle can return to the launch site with sufficient engine performance and precise control. If the engines can't deliver enough thrust, or the booster can't control its trajectory properly, then a tower catch becomes much more difficult, or even impossible. That said, I'm honestly less worried about the booster catch. SpaceX already has considerable experience catching super-heavy boosters from earlier versions of the rocket. So far, Super Heavy Booster 22 performed a static fire test at Starbases Pad 2 on October 25. Basically, this is an important engine check before the booster can move toward an integrated flight test. Space X fires up the Raptor III engines while the booster is still locked onto the launch mount to make sure everything is working as it should, from engine ignition and thrust to the propellant systems. Overall, even though neither stage was actually caught, both demonstrated important parts of the process. The ship showed encouraging control during its landing maneuver, while the booster demonstrated a controlled return and a much softer splashdown. It's not too surprising that Elon Musk seems confident about trying to catch both stages on the next flight. Okay, so we've talked about the rocket itself, but there's another big piece of the puzzle we can't ignore. The launch tower. After all, even if both stages are ready to come back, SpaceX still needs a tower that can actually catch them. Now, Starbase has two Mechazilla towers, but one of them is still undergoing upgrades. It looks like SpaceX could attempt to catch both Starship and Super Heavy using just one tower on the next flight. But that raises an obvious question. Can a single tower really handle both stages? Well, there are a few reasons to think it can. SpaceX has already successfully caught Super Heavy multiple times, including flights 5, 7, and 8. So, the catching arms, or chopsticks, have already proven that they can handle the booster's enormous weight. And here's something worth keeping in mind. Super Heavy is actually much heavier than Starship, even when the booster is nearly empty. So, if the tower can handle catching the booster, that gives us a pretty good indication that its structure and catching system have the strength needed for the job. But what about Starship? Well, the interesting thing is that Mechazilla was designed from the beginning to catch both stages, not just the booster. Of course, the two vehicles have different catching points. Super Heavy is caught around its grid fins, while Starship uses dedicated hard points near its forward flaps. That means the catching process isn't exactly the same, but the tower's arms, hydraulic systems, and supporting structure were designed to handle the loads involved. And SpaceX has already been testing this capability on the ground. During testing at Pad 2, SpaceX used Ship 42, the vehicle that flew on Flight 15, to carry out catch-related tests. The company lifted the ship into a catch-style position using the chopsticks, cycled the arms, and tested structural loads, alignment, and software. SpaceX also tested connecting and disconnecting the ship quick disconnect. The system that provides the necessary connections between the ground infrastructure and the vehicle. So, these tests are important because they help SpaceX check whether the tower can physically support the ship and whether all the systems work together as intended. But there's one important distinction here. Being able to lift Starship on the ground is not the same as catching it after a flight. Starship returns from orbital velocity, which means it has to survive the intense heat of atmospheric re-entry before performing its belly flop maneuver, flipping back to a vertical position, and firing its engines for the landing burn. That's a much more demanding flight profile than the booster's return. The tower also needs the vehicle to arrive at precisely the right position, orientation, and speed. And even if the catching arms themselves are strong enough, the entire sequence still needs to work perfectly. So, while the ground tests are encouraging, they don't prove that a real Starship catch will succeed. Still, based on the tower's previous booster catches, its design for both stages, and the ground testing SpaceX has carried out, the tower hardware doesn't appear to be the biggest obstacle. My take is that, barring any unexpected issues or changes to the plan, the existing tower looks capable of supporting a dual-catch attempt. The real test will be whether Starship can return and line itself up with the catching arms as precisely as required. And looking a little further ahead, I don't think SpaceX will always need to catch both stages with the same tower. Once work on the second tower at Pad 1 is complete, SpaceX could use one tower to catch Starship and the other to catch Super Heavy. In fact, the mission simulation shown during the earnings call, along with reports about the planned setup, points toward that kind of arrangement. And, honestly, that makes a lot of sense. Having two towers available would give SpaceX more flexibility to recover both stages without having to rely on a single tower for the entire operation. Okay, so now we've looked at the rocket itself and the launch tower, and things seem to be coming together. It's time for the final question. How would this first double-catch attempt actually work during Flight 15? Let's walk through it. First, after stage separation, the Super Heavy booster will turn around and head back toward the launch site, where it will attempt to be caught by Mechazilla's mechanical arms, often called the Chopsticks. Meanwhile, Starship won't be waiting around. It will continue its mission in space while SpaceX deals with the booster. That gives the team several hours to handle the booster before Starship returns. Depending on the mission timeline, they could have around 8 hours or even more to work with. Then comes the harder part, bringing Starship back. In a recent simulation released by SpaceX, we can see what appears to be Starship being captured by the launch tower. And the orientation shown seems consistent with the ship approaching, with its black heat shield side, facing away from the tower. So, why does that matter? Imagine the launch tower standing beside the launch pad, with the Gulf nearby. Starship returns from space, performs its belly flop maneuver, and eventually rotates upright to land. But as it makes that final approach, it can't just show up in whatever orientation it happens to be in. The ship needs to line up with the catching arms and the tower's capture geometry. Its orientation also matters for the connections used to service the vehicle once it's back on the ground. In other words, Starship needs to arrive at the tower facing the right way, not just in the right position. One possible maneuver that's been discussed is a 180-degree yaw rotation during the belly flop phase. Basically, Starship would rotate around its vertical axis while it's still flying horizontally before beginning its final flip into a vertical landing position. By rotating 180 degrees during the belly flop, Starship could change which direction its nose and tail point before starting the final landing maneuver. The idea is that, after the ship flips upright, it could arrive at the tower with its heat shield side facing outward and its opposite side facing the tower, matching the orientation suggested by the simulation. Of course, the exact maneuver SpaceX will use still needs to be confirmed. The simulation gives us a clue about the intended capture orientation, but it doesn't necessarily reveal every detail of the flight sequence. Elon Musk has said that the odds of successfully catching Starship on its first attempt are more likely than not. Of course, that doesn't mean it's guaranteed to work, and SpaceX is ready to keep trying if things don't go as planned. But hey, it would be pretty awesome if they pulled it off on the very first try. So stay tuned, and I'll keep you updated as soon as it happens.