SpaceX’s Starship returns to launch pad from orbit for first time

SpaceX’s bullet-shaped, stainless steel Starship returned to Earth on Saturday, captured in midair by giant mechanical arms at the launch pad 22 hours after its journey began.The recovery delivered the grand finale sought by Elon Musk and his team, marking the first time a Starship returning from space has been caught. However, the company missed its target of a double catch after the first-stage booster exploded shortly after liftoff from Texas on Friday, leaving debris cordoned off by buoys in the Gulf of Mexico.The sci-fi-like capture helped overshadow the failure of the booster recovery."Can you believe it?" shouted SpaceX commentator Dan Huot.SpaceX officials stated that Saturday’s catch proves the total reusability of Starship, which is intended for lunar and Martian travel. Although Friday’s booster recovery was unsuccessful, the firm had already logged three successful booster catches, validating the technique.Starship 42 returns from orbit to the launch pad on the 15th test flight from the SpaceX launch complex in Starbase, Texas (Reuters)NASA welcomed the achievement. The space agency is investing billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and assist in constructing a permanent lunar base. Musk’s wider ambitions involve launching a fleet of Starships to establish a city on Mars.The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — a 407-foot (124-meter) behemoth — blasted off late Friday afternoon from SpaceX’s Starship base near the U.S.-Mexican border. Neatly from its booster before things went awry, the upper-stage spacecraft soared into orbit and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites.Starship continued circling the world 165 miles (265 kilometers) up, with live views of itself and Earth streaming down via Starlink. The spacecraft completed 14 laps around Earth, outshining the previous mission’s one to two laps.It was SpaceX’s 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and its only second trip to orbit.SpaceX reported that everything on the spacecraft, including its vital heat shield, appeared to work well.SpaceX Starship returns to Earth in dramatic catch by launch pad arms (Associated Press)As for the booster, SpaceX’s Kate Tice said its engines stopped firing too soon on the way back down. The booster’s guidance system sensed it wasn’t in the right position and automatically initiated the watery detour and self-destruction. Engineers are still investigating the cause.SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center within the next few months. That is the starting point for NASA’s next Artemis mission, which will skip the moon and remain in orbit around Earth for lunar lander practice.Artemis III’s four astronauts will attempt to dock their capsule with not only Starship but 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, humanity’s first moon landing since the Apollo era more than half a century ago.