BOCA CHICA, Texas — With Starship's first orbital flight now in the books, SpaceX is already turning to the next set of milestones that will define the rocket's path toward full, rapid reusability.
Flight 14 delivered the breakthrough the program had chased for years, lofting Ship 41 into orbit for the first time on Sept. 28. Over roughly ten hours the vehicle completed about six orbital revolutions at an altitude near 275 kilometers, deployed a batch of 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites, and executed a controlled deorbit over the Pacific. Now attention shifts to two goals SpaceX has yet to check off: catching the ship itself and lighting up a second launch site.
The Next Prize: Catching the Ship
On Flight 14, Super Heavy Booster 21 flew a near-flawless profile — a boostback burn, a landing burn and a controlled splashdown in the Gulf rather than a tower catch — while carrying hardware and software upgrades aimed at more reliable engine filtering and relight. Musk has said that had a tower been positioned for the ocean landing, 'it would have been caught,' underscoring how close the system already is.
The upper stage is the harder problem, and SpaceX views the next flight as the first realistic opportunity to attempt a ship catch, potentially even a double catch of booster and ship on the same mission. Musk has framed a tower catch of the ship as a matter of months, with the first reflight of a Starship vehicle expected by the end of this year or early next.
