SpaceX catches upper stage of Starship rocket in historic first
The milestone advances SpaceX’s reusable-rocket program after the spacecraft deployed 26 Starlink satellites and completed 14 laps around Earth.
- On Saturday, SpaceX successfully caught its Starship upper stage using giant mechanical arms at Starbase, Texas, after the spacecraft, Ship 42, completed 14 orbits over a 22-hour flight.
- SpaceX fell short of its goal to recover both rocket stages when the Super Heavy booster aborted its landing attempt Friday due to a low-fuel alarm, resulting in an offshore splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites, Ship 42 returned to be secured by the launch tower's mechanical 'chopstick' arms, which SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called "the missing link" of spaceflight.
- This midair capture serves as a major proof of concept for the Starship program, marking the first time an orbital upper stage has been fully recovered—essential to SpaceX's goal of fully reusable rocket systems.
- NASA's Artemis lunar missions and eventual Mars exploration will rely on Starship technology, as SpaceX aims to increase launch cadence to support a constellation of up to one million satellites for orbital data infrastructure.
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272 Articles
SpaceX achieved a historic milestone by first recovering the Starship spacecraft with the mechanical arms of its Mechazilla launch tower in Texas after completing its orbital flight.
The company founded by technological tycoon Elon Musk caught the top of its space vehicle with the mechanical arms of the Mechazilla launch tower, opening the door to the reuse of its rockets.
The upper section of a SpaceX rocket has returned to Earth in a spectacular fashion and been caught after a flight through space. The projectile was caught by giant mechanical arms at a launch pad in Texas. It is the first time something like this has happened. On Friday afternoon local time, a new attempt was made from the Starbase launch base to launch the so-called Starship rocket and bring it back. Elon Musk's company wants to build a fully …
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