11/14/26, 3:25 PM CST: The ship has been caught by the mechazilla. Superb.
This concludes an almost perfect mission. The booster wasn't caught, but the Ship made it through. We'll get 'em both next time.
11/14/26:
@Erdayastronaut Booster was slightly low on fuel
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 14, 2026
Friday the 13th, 2026, 6:29 PM:
SpaceX's Starship/Heavy booster launched about a hour and a half ago. It looked mostly flawless, but the booster did lose one engine during the boost back burn.
A decision not to attempt a catch at the "mechazilla" tower came from SpaceX at some point in the return to launch site. It is not clear at this time what the issue was.
Also, the booster appeared to do a hover just before splashdown, then an explosion was observed. Flames could be seen for quite some time before finally dying out. There doesn't appear to have been anything dangerous nor damaging at this time. It was somewhat unusual, but nothing has been communicated so far from the available sources.
As for the Starship itself, it got the okay to go for orbit. Then the payload was deployed without incident.
The first check for any anomalies that would cause an early splashdown, resulted in a "go" for continuation of the mission. The Starship then began a shutdown sequence in order to preserve battery power, as this will be a 14 orbit mission. The next check will be in about 7 hours. If any anomalies occur during this time to that time, an early return to an ocean splashdown will occur. It should be emphasized that no early end to the mission is indicated as of this time.
In summary, the mission is ongoing, with no booster catch. The payload was deployed successfully with all starlink satellites in communication with SpaceX.
There doesn't appear to have been anything seriously wrong with the booster from this shot. The shots I was getting didn't show this as clearly, so it looked like a flawed return. This looks good, except that it wasn't a tower catch.
Watch Starship Flight 15 https://t.co/xvmIH2diNA
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 13, 2026
Well, that didn't go well. It was supposed to be the booster landing, not this feed. I did watch it on Instapundit, and tried to embed it, but something went awry.
8:01 PM:
Here's a Brave AI chat link, which is good until a week from posting.
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