SpaceX Starship caught by the giant mechanical arms of its Texas launch tower on Saturday, after 22 hours in orbit, in a first for the company. The upper-stage spacecraft dropped out of thick cloud over Starbase, reignited its engines, flipped upright and settled into the arms, known as Mechazilla, hanging a few hundred feet above the ground.
SpaceX commentator Dan Huot shouted “Can you believe it?” as the spacecraft hung in the arms. “Look at her! Baby, she’s back!” The SpaceX Starship caught on Saturday hung still once its engines shut down. Musk later climbed the launch tower to film the spacecraft at close range and hugged it, then wrote “Looks great” on X.
The flight had begun late on Friday afternoon, when the 407-foot rocket, the largest and most powerful ever built, lifted off from the Starbase site near the United States-Mexico border. The upper stage separated cleanly from its booster, soared into orbit and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites. It then circled the world 165 miles up, with live views of itself and Earth streaming down through Starlink, and completed 14 laps around Earth. That was far beyond the one or two laps of the previous mission.
It was SpaceX’s 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and only its second trip to orbit. SpaceX reported that everything on the spacecraft, including its heat shield, appeared to work well. The SpaceX Starship caught on Saturday flew most of its mission over the Pacific Ocean, firing one of its engines to begin its descent while flying eastward.
SpaceX Starship caught after 14 orbits
The SpaceX Starship caught on Saturday returned to the pad almost a full day after liftoff. Two small fittings near the top of the 171-foot spacecraft hooked onto the tower’s arms as they closed in to grasp it, and the vessel hung still after shutting down its engines. Cameras panned up and down the charred stainless steel craft as it hung high above the ground, supported by the arms.
The SpaceX Starship caught at the tower had separated cleanly from the booster before the trouble began. SpaceX officials said the catch shows that Starship can be fully reused, which matters for rapid and low-cost recycling of the vehicle. The company wants to return rockets directly to the launch site rather than relying on ocean landings and transport back to a launch complex.
SpaceX Starship caught as booster is lost
The day was not a clean success. The first-stage Super Heavy booster, the 236-foot bottom half of the rocket, failed to make a similar return about 10 minutes after liftoff. Its engines stopped firing too soon on the way back down, and the guidance system sensed the booster was not in the right position. It then diverted offshore and destroyed itself over the Gulf of Mexico, where wreckage remained cordoned off by buoys.
SpaceX’s Kate Tice said the engines stopped firing too soon during the return. Engineers are still investigating why the booster’s return went wrong. The company had already made three booster catches at Starbase, and the upgraded booster used on this flight was the production model planned for moon and Mars trips. The goal of recovering both parts of the rocket in one mission, a first for any orbital launch system, remains unmet.
Why the SpaceX Starship caught matters for NASA
NASA welcomed the news on Saturday. The space agency is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and to help build a permanent lunar base. The SpaceX Starship caught on Saturday is the vehicle NASA plans to use for those moon landings. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on X that the catch was “almost magic” and said it brought the moon “one step closer”.
Musk has larger plans for the vehicle. He wants to launch a fleet of Starships to build a city on Mars, and the company sees the rocket as the future workhorse for its Starlink satellite business and for putting data centres in orbit.
SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center within the next few months. What inspection the SpaceX Starship caught on Saturday needs before another flight is not yet public. That site is the starting point for NASA’s next Artemis mission, which will stay in orbit around Earth for lunar lander practice. Artemis III’s four astronauts will attempt to dock their capsule with Starship and with Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander. NASA is targeting as soon as 2028 for Artemis IV, the first crewed moon landing since the Apollo era more than half a century ago.