SpaceX Starship Completes First Midair Return Catch Despite Booster Failure

SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft returned from orbit on Saturday and was caught by giant mechanical arms at its launch tower in Texas, marking the first successful midair capture of the vehicle after a journey lasting around 22 hours.

The achievement provided a major milestone for Elon Musk’s company, which aims to make Starship fully reusable for missions to the Moon and Mars. However, the flight did not deliver the complete recovery SpaceX had hoped for, after the rocket’s first-stage booster failed to return safely following Friday’s launch.

The booster’s wreckage remained in the Gulf of Mexico, where the area was cordoned off with buoys. Its failure contrasted with the successful recovery of the stainless steel upper-stage spacecraft, which descended upright and was secured by the launch tower’s mechanical arms.

SpaceX commentator Dan Huot celebrated the moment, shouting: “Can you believe it?”

Company officials said the capture demonstrated an important part of Starship’s reusability. SpaceX had previously completed three successful booster catches, but Saturday marked the first time the upper-stage spacecraft had been recovered using the technique.

The 124-metre rocket, described as the world’s largest and most powerful, lifted off late Friday afternoon from SpaceX’s Starship base near the US-Mexico border. The upper stage separated cleanly from its booster before continuing into orbit and deploying 26 advanced Starlink satellites.

Starship travelled approximately 265 kilometres above Earth, completing 14 orbits while transmitting live footage of the planet and the spacecraft through the Starlink network. This was a significant improvement on the previous mission, which completed only one or two orbits.

It was the 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and only its second journey to orbit. SpaceX said the spacecraft’s systems, including its heat shield, appeared to perform well during the flight.

The booster recovery failure is still under investigation. SpaceX official Kate Tice said its engines stopped firing earlier than expected during the return. The guidance system detected that the booster was not correctly positioned and automatically diverted it towards the water, triggering its destruction.

NASA welcomed the successful spacecraft recovery, which supports its plans to use Starship to land astronauts on the Moon later this decade. The agency is investing billions of dollars in the programme as part of its Artemis lunar exploration effort.

SpaceX is also preparing to begin Starship launches from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center within the next few months. The site will support preparations for a future Artemis mission that will remain in Earth orbit to practise lunar lander operations.

For Artemis III, four astronauts are expected to dock their capsule with both SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander during mission preparations. NASA is targeting 2028 for Artemis IV, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo programme.