SpaceX Catches Starship Upper Stage for First Time, Booster Recovery Aborted

SpaceX has successfully caught the upper stage of its Starship rocket for the first time, after a flight lasting twenty-two and a half hours.

The rocket returned to Earth and hovered near its launch tower, whose mechanical arms—nicknamed chopsticks—then secured it.

The company had hoped to catch the bottom part of the rocket as well, but this was aborted a few minutes after the launch on Friday. The booster activated an automated abort, diverting instead to the ocean where it hovered above the water before exploding.

Flight Details

The 124m-tall (407ft) rocket successfully blasted off from the Starbase launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas at 16:47 local time on Friday.

The plan was to grab the bottom part of the rocket—the Super Heavy booster—six and a half minutes later when it returned.

The top part of the rocket continued its journey to space where it deployed 26 satellites, which form part of the Starlink constellation that provides high-speed internet.

The Ship completed 14 orbits around the Earth before returning to the launch tower.

Recovery History

SpaceX has managed to catch the Super Heavy Booster on three earlier test flights.

But this was the first time the upper stage of the rocket, which only reached orbit for the first time in September, has been grabbed by the "chopsticks".

Before the flight, SpaceX said it would only try to catch the Ship after carefully assessing the vehicle while it was in space.

Any problems would have resulted in the ship being brought down in the ocean in the same way as the booster.

Why it matters

Building a fully reusable rocket is a long-held ambition for SpaceX.

In 2015, it became the first company to vertically land part of a rocket with its Falcon 9 booster.

Falcon 9 rockets now fly more than 100 times a year and the ability to reuse the bottom part of the rocket has dramatically cut the costs of launch.

SpaceX needs to reliably recover both parts of Starship so that it can fly repeatedly and drastically reduce costs.

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Sources

• bbc.com: Elon Musk’s SpaceX catches Starship rocket upper stage from space
• news.abplive.com: SpaceX Catches Starship Rocket Upper Stage Using Giant 'Chopsticks' In Historic First: WATCH
• thefederal.com: SpaceX catches Starship for first time in milestone for reusable rocket programme

This article was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Company claims are reported as claims. Cover image is AI-generated.