Sunday, August 23, 2026
SpaceX pushes first Starship tower catch out by months
Elon Musk said on August 20 that SpaceX will no longer attempt to catch the Starship upper stage with the launch tower's arms on the upcoming Flight 14, pushing the milestone out to roughly a few months from now and delaying the first Starship reflight to around the end of 2026 or early 2027. SpaceX already catches and reuses Super Heavy boosters with the tower's arms, but catching the faster, higher-arriving upper stage is a bigger engineering challenge; SpaceX shares fell about 6% on the news.
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