TL;DR
A rocket that comes all the way home and flies again within days is how getting to space could finally get cheap, and SpaceX may try to prove it as soon as mid-November. Starship's 15th test flight, the first attempt to catch both halves of the giant rocket in the arms of its launch tower, has turned up on a U.S. air-traffic planning slide for no earlier than Nov. 12. That date is reported, not announced: SpaceX has not confirmed it, and the FAA has not yet licensed the flight. The rockets themselves are ready. Both stages have passed their full-power engine tests on the ground. If the catch works, Starship would be the first orbital rocket ever fully recovered, by Elon Musk's account, and the cheap, frequent launches behind bigger plans, from Moon landings to large stations in orbit, would move a real step closer.
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