SpaceX completes first-ever spaceship capture
- On Saturday, SpaceX successfully caught the Starship spacecraft midair using mechanical 'chopstick arms' above Launch Pad 2 at the Texas Starbase, marking the first-ever capture of a spaceship.
- SpaceX's Super Heavy booster exploded over the Gulf of Mexico shortly after Friday's launch when recovery was aborted, though the company had previously caught booster rockets three times.
- During its 22-hour journey, the Starship orbited Earth 14 times and deployed 26 Starlink Internet satellites. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk confirmed the vessel, ship 42, returned in great condition.
- NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called the recovery 'It was almost magic,' underscoring Starship's role in the Artemis mission to land astronauts on the Moon later this decade.
- Clayton Swope of the Center for Strategic and International Studies called the mission a 'huge technical achievement,' but engineers need multiple repeated successes to handle sensitive payloads and prove operational readiness.
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16 Articles
HISTORIC: SpaceX's Mechazilla CATCHES Returning Starship in Midair — A Fully Reusable Orbital Rocket Is Now Real
Elon Musk's SpaceX caught its Starship upper stage with the launch tower's mechanical arms after a 22-hour orbital flight, the first time any spacecraft has returned from orbit to be caught at its launch site.
Yesterday, SpaceX, the space company of tech billionaire Elon Musk, succeeded for the first time in recovering the top section of its Starship rocket at the launch tower. During an earlier flight in September, the top section did reach an orbit around the Earth, but subsequently crashed into the ocean.
Impressive and for the first time correct return of Elon Musk's Starship to Earth. Nancy Michalopoulou informs us. The article Spectacular return to Earth was originally published on AlphaTV.
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