SpaceX caught a Starship upper stage with its launch tower for the first time

• Starship launched Friday, Nov. 13, from Starbase, Texas. It was the first flight where SpaceX tried to catch both stages.
• The Super Heavy booster aborted its tower catch, diverted to an offshore splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico and exploded before hitting the water. SpaceX is still working out what caused the abort.
• The ship kept going. It deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, then orbited Earth 14 times.
• On Saturday, Nov. 14, after about 22 hours in space, it reentered, flew back to Starbase and was caught by the tower's mechanical "chopstick" arms around 1:20 PM PT. "Mechazilla catches Starship!" SpaceX posted.

Why it matters. A rocket you can catch and fly again is how launches get cheaper and more frequent. CNBC notes that SpaceX needs a reliable, fully reusable Starship to put up more Starlink satellites, its profit center; SpaceX has said one Starship can carry up to 60 Starlink V3 satellites. Starship is also the vehicle NASA is counting on to carry astronauts between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface.

The catch. This was half of the double catch SpaceX wanted. The booster was lost, and the ship catch is one success, not a track record yet.

Builder takeaway. Flight 15 had a fallback for when things went wrong, and it used it: the booster went to the ocean instead of the tower, and the ship still finished the mission. Build the safe abort path before you build the hero move.

Not sponsored. -- MODEL Editors