SpaceX is about to attempt the 'holy grail' of rocketry

By William Gavin

'It's hard to overstate the significance' of the Starship launch scheduled to take place on Friday, analyst says

SpaceX has a major Starship launch scheduled for Friday.

SpaceX is set to attempt to catch its massive Starship rocket for the very first time on Friday, possibly clearing a major milestone on the road to what CEO Elon Musk calls "rapid reusability."

The company plans to launch the 407-foot rocket to orbit Friday afternoon. For the first time, SpaceX (SPCX) will try to catch both the rocket's Super Heavy Booster and upper stage using its launch towers at the launch site in Starbase, Texas.

"It's hard to overstate the significance of this event in the context of the space economy as a 100% reusable rocket is viewed in the industry as the 'holy grail' of rocketry - an event which in many ways unlocks the solar system," Citi analyst John Godyn wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.

SpaceX has caught the Super Heavy Booster in this manner before, but not Starship's upper stage. As long as SpaceX thinks it can do so safely, it plans to have the rocket travel over inhabited areas of Mexico and Texas to return to Starbase, where the tower is intended to catch Starship.

Here's how that would work: On its way back to Starbase, Starship would ignite three Raptor engines to flip itself vertical, followed by using two engines to maneuver itself between the tower's mechanical arms. Then Starship would turn off all but one engine, allowing it to hover as the launch tower's "chopstick" arms close around the vehicle, completing the catch.

SpaceX's launch window opens at 5:45 p.m. Eastern time, and the company plans to broadcast the attempt on the social-media platform X. It plans to catch Starship's booster just minutes after the launch, but the upper stage is expected to embark on a 22-hour flight, with a catch attempt on Saturday.

The company also has the option to call off the catch attempt and have the upper stage splash down in the Pacific Ocean. That would be a disappointment to investors and SpaceX fans.

The flight "represents one of the most consequential engineering demonstrations in modern aerospace history, with a successful recovery of both stages potentially marking a major technological breakthrough," said Raymond James analyst James Gesuale in a client note titled "Catching History."

Gesuale wrote that catching both of Starship's stages would strengthen his confidence in SpaceX's ability to launch more rockets more quickly. If the upper stage misses the catch, SpaceX would need to assess what went wrong and what can be improved, he said.

Starship won't be making the flight, its 15th, alone. It'll be carrying a payload of 26 Starlink V3 satellites, which will be deployed after reaching Earth's orbit. In September, Starship deployed 26 V3 satellites and entered orbit for the first time.

At 26 V3 satellites per launch, each Starship mission would add as much capacity for the Starlink satellite-internet network as can be achieved with 10 Falcon 9 launches, Gesuale said. Eventually, SpaceX plans to send 60 of those satellites to orbit on each Starship mission.

"Starship remains the enabling infrastructure behind several of [SpaceX's] largest potential [market] opportunities, including accelerated Starlink V3 development and orbital data centers," KeyBanc analyst Mike Leshock wrote in client note on Friday.

The United Launch Alliance has also scheduled its heavy-lift Vulcan rocket to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral on Saturday. Its cargo will be a payload of 40 satellites designed by Amazon.com (AMZN) to power its planned rival service to SpaceX's Starlink.

It's the first of 38 Vulcan missions booked by Amazon, which intends to turn its Amazon Leo on for initial service by the end of 2026, powered by nearly 400 satellites. Europe's Arianespace is scheduled to put another 36 satellites in orbit by the end of November.

-William Gavin

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