Starship’s First Orbital Tower Catch & Vulcan Delayed for Second Day - Space News (Nov 15, 2026)

Support The Automated Daily directly: 15 free episodes a day, 5 editions, 3 languages, about $4 a day to produce. A coffee keeps it going: theautomateddaily.com/support Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - KrispCall: Agentic Cloud Telephony - https://try.krispcall.com/tad - SurveyMonkey, Using AI to surface insights faster and reduce manual analysis time - https://get.surveymonkey.com/tad - Discover the Future of AI Audio with ElevenLabs - https://try.elevenlabs.io/tad Today's topics: Starship’s First Orbital Tower Catch - SpaceX completed the first tower catch of a Starship returning from orbit, advancing rocket reusability despite the loss of its Super Heavy booster. The milestone has implications for lower-cost launches and NASA’s Artemis lunar plans. [92] Vulcan Delayed for Second Day - United Launch Alliance postponed Vulcan’s return-to-flight mission for a second day after a communication problem between the rocket and ground systems. The mission is intended to carry 40 Amazon Leo broadband satellites into orbit. [124] Mars Meets Jupiter in Leo - Mars and Jupiter appear unusually close together in Leo on November 15, offering an easy naked-eye conjunction. A telescope also reveals activity among Jupiter’s four large Galilean moons. [18] Episode Transcript Starship’s First Orbital Tower Catch We begin in South Texas, where SpaceX has completed a major test of Starship reusability. After spending about 22 hours in space, the Starship upper stage returned to its launch site on Saturday and descended between the mechanical arms of the launch tower. The arms closed around the spacecraft, completing the first capture of a Starship that had returned from orbit. During the mission, Starship circled Earth 14 times and deployed 26 Starlink satellites. SpaceX also reported that the spacecraft’s heat shield appeared to perform well during reentry. That matters because returning from orbital speed subjects a vehicle to far more heat and stress than recovering a first-stage booster. The flight was not a complete success. The Super Heavy booster suffered an engine problem during its return and diverted away from the launch site before destroying itself over the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX had hoped to catch both stages, so engineers still need to understand that failure. Even so, bringing the upper stage back to the tower is a substantial step. Starship is meant to fly repeatedly, and avoiding ocean recovery or conventional landing hardware could eventually shorten the time between missions. The larger goal remains unproven: SpaceX must show that recovered vehicles can be inspected, refueled and flown again without extensive rebuilding. NASA is watching closely because a version of Starship is planned to carry Artemis astronauts from lunar orbit to the Moon’s surface. [92] Vulcan Delayed for Second Day Over in Florida, United Launch Alliance has postponed the return of its Vulcan rocket for a second consecutive day. Saturday’s attempt was halted because of a network communication problem between ground equipment and the launch vehicle. Fixing it would have taken longer than the available launch window, so the flight was moved to Sunday. An earlier attempt on Friday was disrupted by a separate problem involving the facility that supplies nitrogen for ground operations. United Launch Alliance said the rocket and its payload remain healthy. This mission is notable for two reasons. It will be Vulcan’s first flight in roughly nine months following an in-flight booster anomaly in February, making the launch an important test of confidence in the vehicle’s return to service. It is also carrying 40 satellites for Amazon Leo, the broadband network previously called Project Kuiper. That makes the delay more than a routine schedule change: both the rocket program and a large satellite constellation are waiting on a clean flight. At the time of this recording, another launch attempt is planned for later today. [124] Mars...