Ship 42 completes tower tests as Flight 14 moves to September 22 or later
Ship 42’s tower work rehearsed parts of handling a caught Starship, but Flight 14 is not the mission expected to try it.
SpaceX has completed several days of catch-related tower testing with Ship 42, while planning documents now put Flight 14 no earlier than September 22, according to NASASpaceFlight.com. SpaceX has not announced an official launch target. Ship 42 belongs to Flight 15. Flight 14 is not planned as a catch attempt.
The tower work addressed an important part of recovering a ship: what happens around the catch, including how to move the vehicle and make it safe afterward. Catching it is not the end of the job.
On September 12, SpaceX lifted the unflown, still-engineless Ship 42 near the top of the Pad 2 tower using its chopsticks—the large arms intended to catch returning vehicles. Operators exercised the arms and pins against the ship, rotated the assembly, and lowered the vehicle toward the tower’s propellant connection arm.
They then made small adjustments to align the ship quick disconnect, or SQD, with the matching port on the vehicle. NASASpaceFlight’s interpretation is that SpaceX was practicing reconnecting a caught ship so remaining propellant could be drained before the vehicle was moved away. That purpose has not been confirmed.
The ship was also raised again, rotated back and forth, and held near the tower’s top for an extended period. That may have been a test of the arms’ ability to keep holding a ship after a catch, though the report does not establish the reason.
There is a relevant precedent from Flight 8: after catching Booster 15, the chopsticks moved it toward the north side of the pad. The reason remains unclear, but the event showed that repositioning a captured vehicle is part of the handling sequence SpaceX needs to accommodate. Ship 42’s tests explored that capability with a ship rather than a booster.
Ship 42 has since returned to the production site for engine installation before static fire testing at Massey’s. Its Flight 15 partner, Booster 22, has also completed cryogenic proof testing and returned for engine installation, with its static fire planned at Pad 2. Both remain multiple weeks from flight readiness.
Flight 14 comes first. Its hardware has completed preflight testing, but the report does not provide a detailed mission profile or a full comparison with earlier flights. The key expectation here is narrower: no planned catch attempt, and a clean return that could open the door to catches on Flight 15.
NASASpaceFlight raises the possibility of Flight 15 following within a month if Flight 14 goes well. Watch out for the Flight 14 return results, the next pair’s engine tests, and an explicit catch plan.