SpaceX has caught the upper stage of its Starship rocket in the arms of its launch tower for the first time, completing a manoeuvre no operator has previously attempted on a vehicle returning from orbit.
The catch took place on Saturday, 14 November, at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, about 22 hours after the rocket left the ground on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.
The flight
The upper stage — the part SpaceX calls the Ship — reached orbit and circled the Earth 14 times at an altitude of 265km (165 miles) before returning. On the way it released 26 advanced Starlink satellites.
It then descended onto Launch Pad 2 and was caught between the tower’s mechanical “chopstick arms.” Al Jazeera describes it as the first time the upper stage of a rocket has been brought back to a pinpoint landing after flight so that it could potentially fly again.
Hiru News, citing the BBC, reported that the stage arrived a few minutes later than scheduled, that a large crowd at the launch site cheered as it was secured, and that a commentator on the live broadcast expressed astonishment at the result. Hiru puts the catch at about 3.20pm but does not say in which time zone.
The half that failed
SpaceX had intended to catch both stages on this flight and did not. The Super Heavy booster was lost on its way back down.
“Its engines stopped firing too soon on the way back down,” SpaceX’s Kate Tice said, according to Al Jazeera. The booster’s guidance system sensed it was not in the right position and automatically initiated what Al Jazeera calls “the watery detour and self-destruction.” Hiru’s account matches: the lower stage was steered out towards the sea, where it caught fire close to sea level.
The company has caught Super Heavy boosters on three earlier test flights, so the booster was the better-understood half of the attempt and the Ship was the harder target — it flies higher and faster, and on this flight it came all the way back from orbit.
Why it matters
This was the 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and only the vehicle’s second trip to orbit. Recovering the upper stage intact is the remaining step towards the fully reusable system SpaceX has said it is building, which the company expects to cut the cost of reaching orbit substantially.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the condition of the recovered stage, whether this particular Ship will fly again, or a date for the next flight. Neither states the launch time on Friday in a named time zone, which is why the Hiru clock figure above is left unconverted.
