SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk put the odds of catching the Starship upper stage with the launch tower’s mechanical arms on the first attempt at “at least 50 or 60%”, speaking on the All-In podcast episode released by All-In Podcast, LLC on September 15, 2026. He was answering a question from the hosts about how he handicapped the maneuver.
Musk said Flight 14 is the next Starship mission and the last flight before SpaceX attempts to catch the ship. He said that if Flight 14 goes well, according to Musk, the catch attempt will come on Flight 15.
Reflight of both the ship and the booster would follow. Musk placed that milestone at late 2026 or, in his words, “more likely early next”, which corresponds to early 2027. SpaceX has previously reflown a Falcon booster but has not caught a Starship upper stage with the tower arms and has not reflown a Starship.
Why Reflight Matters in Musk’s Framing
Musk said that once SpaceX can refly the ship, the company will have built the “first fully reusable orbital rocket”. He described full reusability as “the critical breakthrough that’s necessary to extend life beyond Earth”, according to SpaceX.
He drew two comparisons. Musk said the Space Shuttle was only partly reusable, and that the parts that were reused were so difficult to refurbish that, according to him, the shuttle cost more per trip to orbit than an expendable rocket. Musk said Falcon 9 is mostly reusable but loses its upper stage on every flight, which he said is “about the cost of a medium sized jet. So that obviously puts a floor on the, on the cost per flight”.
Reason for the Extra Verification Flight
Musk said the reason SpaceX is running another flight before the catch attempt is debris risk. He said the main concern is the ship breaking up over land during reentry. “What we’re most concerned about is if the ship were to break up over land and rain debris on people, our popularity would diminish very rapidly. So you really can’t rain debris on people without them being very unhappy,” Musk said. He said SpaceX is being “extremely cautious” for that reason.
Evidence Cited From the Previous Flight
Musk said that on the previous Starship flight, SpaceX ran a simulated tower landing over water. He said the simulated point of capture was in the ocean about a thousand miles northwest of Australia, and that if a tower had been at that location it would have caught the ship on that flight, according to SpaceX. He said the Starship design “is capable of full reusability, of that I am certain”, according to SpaceX.
Context for Investors
SpaceX is privately held. The Starship program is the vehicle Musk has tied to SpaceX’s Starlink deployment plans, to NASA’s Artemis lunar lander contract, and to the company’s long-stated Mars ambitions. A successful tower catch of the upper stage, followed by a reflight of both stages, would remove the largest remaining single-use element in the SpaceX launch stack and, on Musk’s telling, reset the cost floor that Falcon 9 currently sits above because of its expended upper stage.
Musk did not give a firm date for Flight 14 or Flight 15 on the podcast. He said the sequencing depends on Flight 14 flying cleanly first, and on SpaceX satisfying itself that the ship will return intact rather than shed debris over populated ground.