Technology

SpaceX Catches Starship Spacecraft With Tower Arms, but Booster Is Lost

SpaceX caught its Starship spacecraft between two mechanical arms at its Texas launch site on November 14, 2026, after 14 orbits. The booster failed to return, but the company says the catch shows the system can be fully reused.

By Alistair Sterling

November 15, 20262 min read

SpaceX Catches Starship Spacecraft With Tower Arms, but Booster Is Lost

SpaceX caught its Starship spacecraft between two giant mechanical arms at its Starbase launch site in South Texas on Saturday, November 14, 2026. SpaceX makes history with a successful catch: it is the first time Starship has flown back from orbit to its launch tower.

The vehicle had left the same pad about 22 hours earlier. It completed 14 laps of Earth before returning.

A catch, and a lost booster

It was not a clean sweep. The company had hoped to catch both stages of the rocket, but the Super Heavy booster did not return to the pad.

SpaceX's Kate Tice said the booster's engines stopped firing too soon on the way down. Its guidance system sensed it was out of position and automatically sent it into the Gulf of Mexico. Engineers are still investigating the cause, and wreckage remained in the water, cordoned off by buoys.

The booster had already done its main job. It pushed the upper stage through the densest part of the atmosphere and separated.

How the return unfolded

The spacecraft, about 170 feet long, was traveling at more than 17,000 mph when one engine fired briefly to nudge it out of orbit. Friction with the air heated its belly and slowed it. Flaps at the front and back steered it over Mexico and back toward Texas.

With a final landing burn, Starship pivoted upright, hovered and slid between the arms, which closed gently around it. Skies that were clear on Friday had turned gray and breezy. SpaceX commentator Dan Huot shouted, "Can you believe it?"

SpaceX said everything on the spacecraft, including its heat shield, appeared to work well. Starship also released 26 next-generation Starlink satellites in orbit.

Why it matters

SpaceX has landed and reused the boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for a decade. Their upper stages are still thrown away after each launch. Starship was designed from the start to be fully reusable, and bringing an upper stage back from orbit was a major technical hurdle.

SpaceX officials said the catch demonstrates full reusability, even though Friday's booster recovery failed. The company had already made three previous booster catches. This was its 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and only its second trip to orbit.

NASA is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated the team on social media. Elon Musk, SpaceX's CEO, posted video of the spacecraft from below as part of the post-landing inspection.

What comes next

SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida's Kennedy Space Center within the next few months. NASA is targeting as soon as 2028 for Artemis IV, which would be the first human moon landing since the Apollo era.