SpaceX successfully catches Starship after launch for the first time
While the company has pulled off this trick a few times with Super Heavy boosters, it was a first for the Ship.
SpaceX nailed its first catch attempt of the Starship upper stage, safely catching the Ship with the arms of the launch tower it left from in South Texas.
SpaceX launched Starship on Friday for its 15th test flight, in which it set out to achieve some of its most ambitious goals yet. The company had planned to demonstrate its first double catch, which would see the Super Heavy V3 booster return to the launch site to be caught by the tower's chopstick arms before the upper stage, or the part known as the Ship, attempted the same landing maneuver a day later. SpaceX has caught and reflown V1 Super Heavy boosters a couple of times so far, but it hasn't yet tried to catch the Ship until now.
SpaceX
While Flight 15 succeeded in carrying out some of its main objectives — including deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites to orbit and catching the Ship — the first stage booster experienced a problem on its way back down to Earth and aborted its catch attempt, instead changing course to splash down in the Gulf, where it exploded before hitting the water. The Ship, though, continued on its journey in orbit for roughly 22 hours following launch before heading back down to the surface.