SpaceX intends to attempt something it has never done before on the next Starship test flight: catching both stages of the vehicle. During the company's earnings call, livestreamed on X, Elon Musk said the 15th flight test could take place as soon as next month and would include an attempt to retrieve the upper stage, known as the Ship, using the chopstick arms of the launch tower. The company also showed a short simulation during the livestream illustrating how the Ship would be brought back to the pad and captured.

From ocean splashdowns to tower catches

The plan marks a significant escalation from flight 14, when both the Super Heavy booster and the Ship splashed down in the ocean. Catching the booster with the tower's arms is already an established part of SpaceX's test campaign, but the upper stage has never been recovered this way. The distinction matters because the Ship travels much higher and farther than the booster, and it returns considerably faster. On flight 14, the Ship was meant to spend around 10 hours in orbit, circling the planet before reentry. SpaceX cut that trip short after one of the Ship's engines malfunctioned, but the vehicle still took hours to come back down, whereas Super Heavy returned to Earth just minutes after launch.

Why the upper stage is harder to catch

The engineering challenge is not simply scaling up the booster catch. The Ship's longer mission profile means it reenters with far more energy, and the timing and trajectory of its return must be precise enough for the tower arms to close around it. SpaceX's simulation shows the vehicle descending toward the launch tower before being secured by the chopsticks, the same mechanism used for the booster. Pulling this off would require the Ship to survive reentry, navigate back to the launch site and slow itself for a controlled capture rather than a splashdown. The fact that SpaceX is now preparing an actual attempt suggests the company believes the vehicle's flight and landing systems are mature enough to try.

The reusability endgame

A successful double catch would be a major step toward SpaceX's stated goal of a fully and rapidly reusable orbital launch vehicle. Starship was designed to carry crew and cargo to the moon and to Mars, and full reusability is central to making those missions economically viable. Recovering both stages at the launch site rather than fishing them out of the ocean is the difference between a test programme and an operational, high-cadence launch system. Each stage returned intact and quickly refurbished shortens turnaround times and reduces the cost per flight, which is the core argument for Starship as a deep-space transport architecture.

What happens next

SpaceX has not set a firm date, but Musk's comments put flight 15 potentially within weeks. The company will need to complete its usual pre-flight preparations and regulatory clearances before the attempt. If the catch succeeds, it would be the first time both stages of Starship have been recovered by the tower, and it would give SpaceX valuable data on upper-stage reentry and precision landing. If it fails, the company will still learn from the attempt, as it has from earlier test flights, and the programme's iterative approach means another try is likely to follow quickly.