Elon Musk Aims for Historic 'Double Catch' Friday

Elon Musk’s SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX) is aiming for a historic “double catch” on Friday’s Starship Flight 15, attempting to recover both stages of the rocket using giant mechanical arms nicknamed “chopsticks.”

Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in an October research note that it “could be the biggest positive catalyst since the IPO.”

Friday’s 75-minute launch window opens at 5:45 p.m. ET. The Super Heavy booster will attempt its catch roughly six and a half minutes after liftoff from Starbase, Texas.

Starship itself is scheduled to return Saturday, after circling Earth approximately 14 times and deploying 26 Starlink satellites.

SpaceX has previously caught the Super Heavy booster, the powerful first stage that lifts Starship off the ground. But it has never caught the Starship spacecraft itself, which must survive a fiery return from orbit, flip upright and guide itself between the tower’s enormous arms.

Musk called the planned recovery “the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.”

Traders See Starship Catch as a Coin Flip

Musk sounded cautiously optimistic during SpaceX’s October earnings call.

“Success is not guaranteed on these first flights, but I’d say it’s more likely than not that this succeeds next flight,” he said.

Traders on Polymarket put the booster catch at 77%, compared with 47% for Starship, leaving them slightly less confident than Musk.

The Starship contract has attracted only around $11,600 in trading volume.

SpaceX says flight controllers could abandon the tower catch and divert Starship to an ocean splashdown if safety checks reveal problems, even after successfully deploying its satellites.

SpaceX tested the catch system Tuesday, suspending the Super Heavy booster between the tower’s mechanical arms to check they could hold its weight.

Friday’s launch still requires approval from the FAA, which must authorize the flight and Starship’s planned return to the launch tower.

Why the ‘Double Catch’ Matters for SpaceX

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 already reuses its booster but discards its upper stage after every flight.

At September’s All-In Summit, Musk compared that expense to throwing away “a medium sized jet every time.”

Starship aims to eliminate that waste, potentially cutting launch costs and accelerating Starlink expansion, space-based AI infrastructure and lunar missions.

SpaceX said September’s Starship mission deployed roughly 10 times the Starlink downlink capacity of a typical Falcon 9 launch.

Musk is targeting weekly Starship launches in the first half of 2027, increasing to twice weekly or more later that year.

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