For years the idea sounded like science fiction: bring a spaceship back from orbit and let a steel tower pluck it out of the air. On Saturday SpaceX turned it into a routine-looking piece of engineering. At around twenty past four in the afternoon, East Coast time, Ship 42 dropped out of the overcast sky over Starbase in South Texas, flipped upright with three engines burning and settled between the two arms of its launch tower.
The craft had left the same pad about 22 and a half hours earlier on the program’s 15th test flight. During that time it reached orbit, released 26 third-generation Starlink satellites and survived the fiery plunge back through the atmosphere. Catching the much larger Super Heavy booster is something the company has already pulled off three times; doing it with the upper stage, which travels faster and higher, had never been tried until now.
Not everything went to plan, though. SpaceX had hoped to recover both stages, but the booster abandoned its approach on Friday after a low-fuel warning and came down over the Gulf of Mexico. Engineers are still working out what went wrong.
On the company webcast the mood was nonetheless close to euphoric. “We caught a Starship, and now everything changes,” host Dan Huot said. Only two short pins on the side of the vehicle gave the arms something to grip, leaving almost no room for error.
The comparison with NASA’s Space Shuttle shows why the feat matters. The orbiters glided to a runway without power and needed lengthy refurbishment, while their huge fuel tank was thrown away each time. SpaceX wants a ship that can be inspected and launched again quickly, a prerequisite for Elon Musk’s plans for ever-bigger satellite networks and trips to the Moon and Mars. Another attempt at a double catch is expected on the next flight.
