SpaceX Starship upper stage returns to launch tower after orbital flight
After a 22-hour mission and 14 orbits of Earth, the upper stage of SpaceX's Starship was caught by the mechanical arms of its Texas launch tower on Saturday. The booster was lost on Friday, so the planned double catch did not happen.
The upper stage of SpaceX's Starship megarocket returned to its launch tower in Texas on Saturday and was caught by the tower's mechanical arms. It is the first time the US space company has caught an upper stage, and a step toward making the vehicle suitable for crewed spaceflight.
The 171ft (52-metre) upper stage orbited Earth 14 times during a mission lasting 22 hours. It was Starship's 15th test flight, and the plan was a double catch, with both parts of the rocket returned intact to the launch site rather than recovered from the sea, as in some earlier tests.
Booster lost
Starship has two parts: a lower stage called Super Heavy, whose Raptor engines powered the ascent into orbit, and an upper stage that is also named Starship. The double-catch plan fell apart on Friday, when the booster diverted a few minutes after liftoff and exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. The guidance, navigation and control system triggered the abort.
SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said early on Saturday that the system did what it was designed to do: it detected that the booster was not where it needed to be to attempt a catch, and stopped the procedure.
Why it matters
The achievement comes as 2028 approaches, the date by which Nasa, the US space agency, plans to return humans to the lunar surface. The agency has contracted SpaceX and Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin for the mission.
SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk said on a recent earnings call that the company intends to raise Starship test flights to a weekly cadence, then twice weekly. He has sought to make Starship rapidly reusable so it can land and take off much like standard airplanes. Beyond a Moon landing, Musk has also pushed a plan to carry humans to Mars.