Starship Returns From Orbit and Gets Caught by the Pad

The Independent, citing the Associated Press, reported that the upper-stage spacecraft completed 14 laps around Earth at about 165 miles up, released 26 advanced Starlink satellites, and then descended upright for capture at the Texas pad where the flight began. For a program built around reusability, the useful change is straightforward enough: this was Starship’s second trip to orbit, and unlike the first, the spacecraft came back to the launch site in one piece.

The mission still missed SpaceX’s preferred bit of symmetry. The first-stage booster exploded after Friday’s liftoff, leaving the company short of the double catch it wanted. According to SpaceX’s Kate Tice, the booster’s engines stopped firing too soon on the way down; its guidance system determined it was out of position, diverted it toward the Gulf of Mexico and triggered self-destruction. Wreckage remained cordoned off by buoys.

That makes this a mixed result, though rocket companies tend to grade on a curve that would get interesting looks anywhere else. SpaceX had already completed three previous booster catches, so the novelty this time was the upper stage. The company said the spacecraft’s systems, including its heat shield, appeared to work well.

NASA welcomed the catch. The agency is paying billions of dollars for a version of Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and help build a permanent lunar base, according to the report. SpaceX also expects to begin launching Starships from Kennedy Space Center within the next few months, putting the vehicle closer to the part of the program where schedules start to matter to someone else.

Starship is a 407-foot rocket, and this was the 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023. The spectacle is obvious enough. The harder figure to ignore is that SpaceX now has one successful catch of a spacecraft returning from orbit, alongside a booster that still ended up in the Gulf.