Starship Flight 15.... Double Catch

This week there is potentially one of the most groundbreaking and astonishing feats in American space history. A fully reusable rocket is the holy grail of rocketry as SpaceX said in their documentary episode after flight 13 splashed down and remained intact in the Indian Ocean. The thought of a fully reusable rocket is unheard of and would be a game changer in the aerospace industry and would open the gates to unlocking what SpaceX claims is the full potential of Starship and Superheavy.

The current NET is Friday November 13th at 5:45 p.m. EST an evening liftoff that will head across the Gulf of America and will do a 22 hour coast phase after doing an orbital insertion burn and deploying another set of Starlink V3 satellites. Will it be called Starlink 31-2 is the question that so far has been unanswered. If it is an on-time liftoff there is very little chance of a jellyfish in Florida and the Caribbean but if it pushes even slightly into the window the chances greatly increase!

Due to the long coast phase there are multiple abort zones the first of these will be in the Indian Ocean if there is a no go for orbital insertion, which by many would be considered a mission failure, then there would be a suborbital splashdown in the Indian Ocean just to the west of Australia. Once it goes orbital it has an early splashdown near Hawaii, north of the islands and an early splash down to the west of Chile off of South America. If all goes well there will be deorbit burn and there will be a catch attempt by the tower 22 hours after launch.

The booster on this flight will be booster 22 and it will be its first flight, and hopefully not its last flight after a successful catch! It will relight all 33 engines for a boost-back burn and a landing burn with hopefully a successful booster catch due to the long coast phase SpaceX will have time to safe the booster and put it back on launch mount and completely de-tank any remaining propellant in the tanks and put it back on booster transport stand and transport back to the production facility in plenty of time before the ship hopefully makes its own journey back to the launch site!