SpaceX catches Starship upper stage from orbit in historic first

SpaceX caught the upper stage of its Starship rocket as it returned from orbit on Saturday, snagging the spacecraft in midair with giant mechanical arms above its Starbase, Texas, launch site — the first-ever capture of a Starship flying back from space.

According to the Associated Press and Reuters, the spacecraft emerged from a cloudy sky and descended slowly over Starbase before slipping between the tower's "chopstick" arms above Launch Pad 2, roughly 22 hours after lifting off on Friday. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk congratulated his "incredible team" after the catch.

A milestone for reuse

The company said Saturday's catch demonstrates Starship's full reusability, which it describes as crucial for rapid, low-cost recycling of the vehicle. The upper stage completed 14 laps around the Earth at an altitude of about 265 kilometres (165 miles) and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites, outshining the previous mission's one to two laps.

SpaceX reported that everything on the spacecraft, including its vital heat shield, appeared to work well. The flight was the company's 15th of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and only its second trip to orbit.

Booster falls short

The milestone came after a setback on the first phase of the flight. SpaceX failed to catch and recover the booster, diverting it instead to an offshore splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, where it exploded before hitting the water.

SpaceX's Kate Tice said the booster's engines stopped firing too soon on the way back down. Its guidance system sensed it was not in the right position and automatically initiated the watery detour and self-destruction, she said. Engineers are still investigating the cause. Although Friday's booster recovery failed, the company had already made three previous booster catches.

NASA, which is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the Moon later this decade, welcomed the achievement. "It was almost magic," NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on X.

Starship, a 124-metre (407-foot) rocket, is the world's largest and most powerful, intended for Moon and Mars travel. SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida's Kennedy Space Center within the next few months.