First posted on Instagram
SpaceX caught its Starship spacecraft with the launch tower's giant chopstick arms on Saturday afternoon at Starbase, Texas, the first time a spacecraft returning from orbit has been caught at the launch site it left from — but the Super Heavy booster that launched it was lost minutes after liftoff, aborting its own planned catch and exploding over the Gulf of Mexico.
The catch is the step SpaceX has been working toward since it first caught a Super Heavy booster: a spacecraft that can be caught, inspected and flown again instead of being thrown away after a single trip. That is how the company plans to cut the cost of reaching orbit. It was also the first time a vertically launched spacecraft has returned from orbit to its launch site. Until Saturday, SpaceX had caught and reflown earlier Super Heavy boosters, but it had never tried to catch the Ship — and the upper stage had always been lost.
Minutes after the catch, SpaceX posted on X: "Mechazilla catches Starship! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on this incredible achievement!" At Starbase, the team erupted in celebration as chants of "USA! USA!" filled the air.
Flight 15, the 15th integrated test flight, lifted off on Friday, November 13, at 4:47 p.m. Central time (5:47 p.m. ET) from Starbase. The 407-foot (124-metre) rocket is the world's largest and most powerful. Its upper stage, Ship 42, is 171 feet tall. It reached orbit, released 26 of SpaceX's newest Starlink V3 satellites, circled Earth 14 times at about 165 miles altitude, and then came back on Saturday at about 3:20 p.m. Central (4:20 p.m. ET), falling out of thick cloud, reigniting its engines, flipping upright and settling into the tower's "Mechazilla" arms.
SpaceX had planned a first "double catch" of both stages. Instead, Super Heavy Booster 22 aborted its tower catch minutes after launch, diverted offshore and exploded before hitting the water in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX first called it a guidance issue, then corrected itself: the guidance system worked as designed. Early signs point to the boostback burn ending early on a low fuel mass alarm, and the root cause is still under investigation. The Verge called the flight not a complete success because the whole launch vehicle was not recovered.
SpaceX has tied no new prices or service dates to this flight. It is still investigating the booster failure, and the next flights will aim for the double catch both stages were meant to complete — a Ship caught in the tower's arms, and a booster beside it.