SpaceX’s Starship, after mishap, returns from orbit and is captured by launchpad

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A day after an explosion foiled plans for a grander historic maneuver, SpaceX’s Starship returned to Earth on Saturday, caught in midair by giant mechanical arms where its journey began 22 hours earlier.

It was the first-ever capture of a Starship flying back from space, though not entirely what Elon Musk and his team had hoped for. After the first-stage booster exploded shortly after Friday’s liftoff from Texas, the mission fell short of its intended double catch.

Wreckage of the booster remained in the Gulf of Mexico, cordoned off by buoys, as the stainless steel, bullet-shaped spacecraft lowered itself upright at the launchpad.

Cameras panned up and down the spacecraft as it hung high above the ground, supported by the arms of the launch tower.

“Can you believe it?” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot shouted, dragging out each word. “Look at her! Baby, she’s back!”

SpaceX officials said Saturday’s catch demonstrates the full reusability of Starship, intended for moon and Mars travel. Although Friday’s booster recovery failed, the company had made three previous booster catches.

NASA welcomed Saturday’s news. The space agency is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and help build a permanent lunar base. Musk’s ambitions are even grander: He wants to launch a fleet of Starships to build a city on Mars.

“It was almost magic,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said via X. “Making more believers by the day ... one step closer to,” he added, followed by emojis of the moon and the U.S. flag.

The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — a 407-foot behemoth — blasted off late Friday afternoon from SpaceX’s Starship base near the U.S.-Mexican border. Separating neatly from its booster before things went awry, the upper-stage spacecraft soared into orbit and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites.

Starship continued circling Earth 165 miles up, with live views of itself and Earth streaming down via Starlink. The spacecraft completed 14 laps around the planet, far surpassing the previous mission’s approximately two laps.

It was SpaceX’s 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and its second trip to orbit.

SpaceX reported that everything on the spacecraft, including its vital heat shield, appeared to work well.

As for the booster, SpaceX’s Kate Tice said its engines stopped firing too soon on the way back down.

“Well, that certainly isn’t the news that we had hoped to hear for today,” Tice said after the explosion Friday, adding that it was in line with the many rigorous safety checks to protect the pad.

The booster’s guidance system sensed it wasn’t in the right position and automatically initiated the watery detour and self-destruction, she said Saturday. 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, which would be humanity’s first moon landing since the Apollo era more than half a century ago.

Dunn writes for the Associated Press.