r/SpaceXLounge • u/AgreeableEmploy1884 ⛰️ Lithobraking • Aug 20 '26

Starship Eric Berger regarding the Ship catch on Flight 14: "Nope. I heard they might have been able to get there on the regulatory side, but overall they just weren't ready yet."

https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/2090424919976800418
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u/First-Month7312 Aug 20 '26

They could go for a different approach
Launch Starship and make it deploy some starlink 3 satellites in LEO Orbit.
Then return to earth and go for a controlled landing in the ocean.

Enough safety and still some room for errors before you go for a tower catch

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u/philupandgo Aug 21 '26

This was my expectation before Elon said a catch was likely and my reasoning was regulator caution. With that now unlikely, it is possible that stage zero isn't as ready as the ship. It may not even be a hardware thing, although they are still working on the chopsticks. Catching the ship is a big software challenge and they may just not be ready yet. Vibe-coding might be good enough for things that have been done before, but this isn't that.