Ship 42, Flight 15's vehicle, fires a single engine at Massey's
From the Space digest for Oct 27, 2026
Sources NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight NASASpaceflight
What happened: On the evening of October 26, NSF posts showed the Massey's test site at Starbase closed for a potential static fire, a broadcast announced the firing, and follow-up relays confirmed a single-engine static fire of Ship 42 — the ship assigned to Flight 15 (NASASpaceflight). The next evening, October 27, the full test followed: NSF's Rough Riders crew staged for a second attempt with "this one might be all six engines" (NASASpaceflight), NSF announced the burn (NASASpaceflight), relays reported "Ship 42 just wrapped a full 6-engine static fire at Massey's, following its single-engine test yesterday" (NASASpaceflight), and a closing NSF post confirmed Ship 42 has completed both its single- and six-engine static fire tests, paving the way for Flight 15 in November (NASASpaceflight). Ship 43, the Flight 16 vehicle, spent the same stretch on Pad 2 practicing catch procedures — back on the ground the morning of October 27 and, by early afternoon, elevated on Pad 2's chopsticks for pre-catch testing, a step beyond the ground-level catch work (NASASpaceflight).
What's genuinely new: The six-engine burn is done — prior reporting carried only the October 26 single-engine fire and left the full test as an open question. With Booster 22's Pad 2 static fire already done October 25, both halves of the Flight 15 stack have now run static fires ahead of the mission's current target, November 8, which SpaceX intends to attempt catching both stages.
Watch: The combined Flight 15 campaign — rollout and static-fire of the stacked vehicle — and the November 8 target with its two-stage catch attempt.