Baby She’s Back: SpaceX’s Starship Caught by Launch Tower
SpaceX caught its Starship spacecraft with giant mechanical arms on the launchpad after it returned from orbit, a first for the program. The booster was lost after liftoff, so the planned double catch did not happen. NASA, which is paying billions for lunar landers, welcomed the result.
“Baby, she’s back!” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot shouted as the company’s Starship spacecraft was caught by giant mechanical arms on its launchpad, the first capture of a Starship returning from space.
The stainless-steel spacecraft lowered itself upright onto the pad near the US-Mexican border, supported by the arms of the launch tower. Elon Musk congratulated his “incredible team.”
Booster lost, spacecraft saved
SpaceX had hoped for a double catch of both stages, still the goal for speeding up moon and Mars travel. It did not get one. The first-stage booster exploded shortly after liftoff from Texas, 22 hours before the spacecraft returned.
Booster wreckage was still cordoned off in the Gulf of Mexico when the spacecraft came down. SpaceX’s Kate Tice said the booster’s engines stopped firing too soon on the way back. Its guidance system sensed it was out of position and automatically steered it to a watery landing. Engineers are investigating.
What the flight achieved
The 124-metre rocket is the world’s largest and most powerful. The upper stage separated cleanly, reached orbit and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites.
From 265 kilometers up, the spacecraft streamed live views of itself and Earth via Starlink. It completed 14 orbits, outshining the previous mission. This was SpaceX’s 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and only its second trip to orbit.
SpaceX reported that all equipment, including the craft’s heat shield, appeared to work well.
Why reuse matters
SpaceX officials said the catch showed Starship can be fully reused, which is crucial for rapid, low-cost recycling. Three earlier booster catches had already validated the technique.
NASA is paying billions for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and help build a permanent lunar base. Musk wants to go further and launch a fleet of Starships to build a city on Mars.
Florida launches and Artemis
SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida’s Kennedy center within months. That is the starting point for NASA’s next Artemis mission, which will skip the moon and stay in orbit around Earth for lunar lander practice.
Artemis III’s four astronauts will try to dock their capsule with both Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon. The two companies will alternate delivering crews to the lunar surface. NASA is targeting as soon as 2028 for Artemis IV, the first moon landing since the Apollo era more than half a century ago.
NASA administrator Jared Isaacman welcomed the result on X. “It was almost magic,” he said. “Making more believers by the day ... one step closer.”
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