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SpaceX Successfully Catches Starship After Orbital Flight
· Confirmed
In Short: SpaceX successfully caught its Starship spacecraft after an orbital flight, marking a significant milestone in reusable rocket technology.
Watch live: SpaceX Starship circles Earth ahead of first launch pad catch (part 1). Spaceflight Now
SpaceX successfully caught its Starship spacecraft after an orbital flight, marking a significant milestone in reusable rocket technology.
SpaceX officials said the goal of the mission was to establish a reusable system of spacecraft equipment, which could greatly reduce the cost of space travel.
The spacecraft reached orbital speeds of approximately 17,000 mph and completed 14 orbits at an altitude of about 165 miles before reentering Earth's atmosphere.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk envisions thousands of Starship launches per year from at least three sites: Starbase in Texas, Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and a newly announced site in Louisiana.
The FAA is considering a plan for nearly 460 Starship launches and more than 900 landings a year at the complex outside Brownsville.
SpaceX has been launching in South Texas for three years and has never been able to catch any of its Starship spacecraft before this successful attempt.
SpaceX Communications Manager Dan Huot said, 'We caught a Starship,' ending the marathon 23-hour livestream.
SpaceX has dazzled us before, by landing rockets on barges and returning humans to space with Crew Dragon.
SpaceX's webcast showed the arms closing around the vehicle as it hung beside the tower, and there were loud cheers from SpaceX staff who were watching the flight as the rocket returned to the Starbase launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas.
Background
SpaceX successfully executed its first 'chopstick' catch of the Starship rocket on Saturday.
What's confirmed
- The recovery followed Starship’s 15th test flight, which began Friday evening.
- The Hawaii Department of Transportation issued a temporary pause on some West Coast flights Friday, due to debris risk from the flight.
What's still developing
- SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell had said last month that Starship’s may start reflying by early 2027.
- Years of development — including 15 full-scale flight tests since 2023 — led up to today's orbital catch, which Huot called "the Holy Grail of spaceflight."
- Musk also has a grand vision to use Starship to "colonize Mars" and "make humanity multi-planetary." During Test Flight 15 on Friday, SpaceX released another 26 of its newest Starlink v3 satellites into orbit, growing its commercial satellite internet network.
- The Starship rocket system is not only much larger than Falcon 9, but it was designed from the start to be fully reusable.
- Starship is slated to serve as one of two lander designs that will take astronauts to the surface of the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.
- On land, SpaceX said this week it plans more than $74 billion of AI supercomputing campuses in Texas and Arizona.
- Slowly, gently, haltingly, the Starship upper stage eased its way toward the waiting tower where two arms extended outward, awaiting expectantly.
- It released 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the second batch after Flight 14 in September; three of them carried cameras that photographed the ship's heat shield [1] [6].
- One Starship rocket can carry up to 60 Starlink v3 satellites, the company has said.
- For the past decade, SpaceX has successfully landed the boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets and then reused them on subsequent launches.
- STARBASE, Texas —The black and silver ship fell out of the sky, emerging from the cloud deck near the very end of its flight.
- Watching Starship launch from here a little less than a day earlier, and knowing it had orbited the planet multiple times, added to the sense of unreality in seeing this spaceship return to Earth under its own power, and be captured by the tower.
Sources
- ABC13 Houstonlink
- BigGo Financelink
- Expressnewslink
- Fox Businesslink
- Mlqlink
- Payload Spacelink
- Qazinformlink
- SpacePolicyOnline.comlink
- Starlust.orglink
- Universe Todaylink
- BBClink
- Cnbclink
- The New York Timeslink
- Interestingengineeringlink
- Wcyblink
- San Antonio Express-Newslink
- Spaceflight Now — video link
- The Launch Pad — video link