Friday the 13th, Flight 15, and a Few Happy Litecoin Coincidences

3 hours ago

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Litecoin's 15th year, on Friday the 13th, brings the first attempt to catch both Starship and the Super Heavy booster.

It comes full circle with the first booster catch on Litecoin's 13th birthday, October 13, 2024, and with Flight 13, the first time a Starship was recovered.

SpaceX is getting ready to fly Starship Flight 15 from Starbase, Texas, later today. If you enjoy a little numerology, the dates and flight numbers line up in some pretty fun ways. None of this is a prediction. It's just a happy set of coincidences, and a good day to root for a clean flight.

The first double catch

SpaceX says Flight 15 is scheduled for today, November 13, with a 75-minute launch window that opens at 5:45 p.m. Eastern (4:45 p.m. in Texas). The vehicles on the pad are Booster 22 and Ship 42.

If the team gets the green light, the booster would come back for a catch only a few minutes after liftoff. The ship would stay in orbit for about 14 trips around Earth, deploy 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and only then try to come home, more than 22 hours later. So the ship catch, if they go for it, would land on November 14.

This would be the first time SpaceX has tried to catch a Starship upper stage, and the first catch attempt for a Super Heavy V3 booster. Officially, a successful double catch would be the first full recovery of an orbital launch system.

Don't Panic, and Ship 42

Ship 42 brings another fun layer. A November 12 post from @MASTERBTCLTC says Charlie Lee is a fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and points to a 2017 post from Charlie with a clip from the 1984 series.

The same post says the side of SN42 reads "don't panic," the Guide's famous advice, and that 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It also points out that 42 million is half of Litecoin's 84 million coin supply.

A full circle from Litecoin's 13th birthday

Litecoin launched on October 13, 2011. Thirteen years later, on Litecoin's 13th birthday (October 13, 2024), SpaceX flew Starship SN30 and Booster 12, and successfully caught the booster for the first time.

That flight was Starship's fifth test. Booster 12 came back to the tower and was caught on the first try. Ship 30 (SN30) made it through reentry and splashed down in the Indian Ocean. It wasn't caught, but the day still marked a huge first for the program.

SpaceX posted a short official highlight of that flight, titled Starship's Fifth Flight Test. It's a great place to watch the first booster catch.

As the booster comes back to the tower, you can hear the announcer talk about igniting "13 of those Raptor engines." That's the landing burn: thirteen engines light to slow the booster, then ten shut down and three finish the approach. A moment later, you can hear the announcer say, "we can see those Chopsticks now," right before the tower arms catch Super Heavy on the first try.

The catch arms have been nicknamed chopsticks for years. If you like a little extra numerology, The Karate Kid came out in 1984, and its chopsticks lesson is one of the movie's most famous scenes. Litecoin's total supply is 84 million. It's just a fun overlap, the same way 13 keeps showing up in this story.

Elon made that chopsticks connection himself. A couple of days before the first catch, he wrote that they would try to catch the booster with the Mechazilla arms "like giant chopsticks (like Karate Kid)!"

If you like playing with the numbers, Ship 30 (SN30) and Booster 12 are each one away from SN31 and B13, and 31 and 13 mirror each other. Today's Flight 15 closes a kind of circle: two years later, on another 13th, SpaceX is trying to catch both stages.

Flight 13, and a first recovery

There's another 13 in the story. On Flight 13, July 24, 2026, Ship 40 made a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean and stayed intact. That was the first time a Starship upper stage had come back from a spaceflight in one piece. SpaceX then recovered the vehicle from the water and eventually brought it home to Starbase.

It wasn't a tower catch. That first ship catch is what the team is aiming for on Flight 15. But Flight 13 was still the first time SpaceX recovered a Starship, and it sits nicely in this little trail of 13s.

And there's one more 13 that's a little closer to home. I wrote two books, and the release dates lined up perfectly.

The Other Bitcoin: Why Litecoin is Hiding in Plain Sight came out on April 13, 2026, Charlie Lee's birthday. Then Litecoin Is a Better Bitcoin: 13 Reasons came out on October 13, 2026, Litecoin's birthday.

Starlink in Côte d'Ivoire

Around that same stretch of summer, Elon Musk posted that Starlink was now available in Côte d'Ivoire, also known as the Ivory Coast.

That's where Litecoin creator Charlie Lee was born. He later moved to the United States as a teenager and went on to launch Litecoin in 2011. Seeing Starlink come online in Charlie's birthplace, just days before Flight 13, is one of those overlaps you can't help but smile at.

Call me Ishmael

There's a Moby-Dick twist in this story, too. In September, Elon shared a new SpaceX documentary episode about a high-seas race to recover a floating Starship. A post from @MASTERBTCLTC replied with the novel's famous opening line: "Call me Ishmael."

The same post tied Flight 13 together with Starlink going live in Côte d'Ivoire, where Charlie was born, and called that splashdown the first Starship ever recovered, with a long effort at sea to bring the vehicle home.

A lucky Friday the 13th?

Friday the 13th has a reputation for being unlucky. Ahead of today's attempt, Elon took the other side of that idea. Replying about the Friday the 13th launch date, he wrote, "Fate does love irony, so perhaps the unluckiest day will actually be the luckiest," and added a four-leaf clover.

Whether the catches work on the first try or the team needs another window, it's a fun wish for the flight.

A Litecoin idea for the SpaceX treasury

SpaceX already holds a serious bitcoin treasury. According to the company's latest quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, SpaceX holds 18,712 bitcoin. On-chain trackers, including Arkham Intelligence, have reported the same figure.

That's a big, long-term vote of confidence in digital assets from one of the most ambitious companies on Earth. And it raises a friendly thought for Litecoin fans: it would be pretty special if SpaceX also added a little Litecoin to that treasury, or converted a small slice of its bitcoin into LTC.

Nobody has said the company plans to do that. It's just an idea, offered in the same spirit as the rest of this piece. Litecoin was built as a complementary, faster, and lighter counterpart to bitcoin. A small Litecoin balance alongside a large bitcoin one would be a nice symbol of that relationship, and another high-profile sign of Litecoin adoption.

Here's hoping for a lucky flight

A November 10 post from @MASTERBTCLTC gathers some of the same numbers: Litecoin's 13th birthday and the first booster catch, Flight 13's first Starship recovery, Friday the 13th, and Flight 15 in Litecoin's 15th year, with an attempt to catch both stages.

Add Starlink arriving in Côte d'Ivoire and a four-leaf clover on the timeline, and you've got a pretty charming set of coincidences.

None of them prove anything. They're just a fun way to watch a big day in space with Litecoin in mind. Here's hoping the clover is right, and that both catches go as planned.

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Friday the 13th, Flight 15, and a Few Happy Litecoin Coincidences

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