SpaceX Catches Starship Spacecraft Mid-Air in a First

SpaceX's Kate Tice said the booster's engines stopped firing too soon on the way back down. Its guidance system sensed it was out of position and automatically sent it into the water and triggered self-destruction. Engineers are still investigating the cause.

The company had already made three previous booster catches, which SpaceX says validated the technique.

The flight

The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket lifted off late Friday afternoon from SpaceX's Starship base near the U.S.-Mexican border. The upper stage separated from its booster, reached orbit and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites.

Starship then circled Earth at 165 miles (265 kilometers) up, streaming live views via Starlink. It completed 14 laps, compared with one to two laps on the previous mission.

This was SpaceX's 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and only its second trip to orbit. The company said everything on the spacecraft, including its heat shield, appeared to work well.

What it means for NASA

SpaceX officials said the catch demonstrates the full reusability of Starship, which is intended for moon and Mars travel. NASA welcomed the news. The agency is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and help build a permanent lunar base.

SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida's Kennedy Space Center within the next few months. That site is the starting point for NASA's next Artemis mission, which will skip the moon and stay in Earth orbit 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 take turns 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.