Flight 15 stack fully static-fire tested; Ship 42 named for the first tower catch
From the Space digest for Oct 29, 2026
What happened: SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 pre-flight test campaign is now complete on both sides of the stack. Booster 22 fired all 33 Raptor engines at Pad 2 on October 25, and SpaceX's own channel confirmed Ship 42's campaign at the Massey's test site — a full-duration six-engine static fire plus a single-engine burn simulating a deorbit burn. Tracking feeds showed Ship 42 leaving Massey's on Highway 4, headed back to the production site after finishing testing. A roundup article states Elon Musk has singled out Ship 42 as the vehicle designated to achieve the first-ever tower catch of a Starship upper stage. The launch target, meanwhile, has moved: an air-traffic-management slide lists Flight 15 as no earlier than November 12 (SpaceNotices (X)) — a slip from the November 8 date circulated earlier — and NASASpaceflight reads the shift as regulatory approval for the catch attempts coming into play, with vehicle readiness looking good (NASASpaceflight (X)).
What's genuinely new: The circulated November 8 target for the first dual-catch attempt has slipped to NET November 12 — and the read on the slip is regulatory, not hardware: with both halves of the stack through a complete static-fire checkout, the holdup is approval for the catch attempts themselves.
Watch: FAA approval for the catch attempts, the rollout of the combined stack to Pad 2, whether the November 12 date holds, and the catch attempt itself — the first time SpaceX would try to recover both stages of a Starship.
Links: Basenor · NASASpaceflight (X) · NASASpaceflight (X) · SpaceNotices (X) · NASASpaceflight (X) · Oct 29, 10:36 AM ET