SpaceX catches Starship upper stage with Mechazilla tower arms for the first time

SpaceX has caught a Starship upper stage with the arms of its launch tower for the first time, according to The Verge. The maneuver is a significant milestone for the Starship program, though the same flight ended with the loss of the mission's booster.

What happened

During Starship Flight 15, the Starship vehicle descended back toward the launch site and was captured by the arms of SpaceX's "Mechazilla" launch and catch tower. The Verge describes footage of the event: the ship plunged through the clouds, flipped into a vertical orientation, and eased itself between the tower's waiting arms at around 4:20 PM ET.

The tower's arms, widely nicknamed "chopsticks," are designed to grab a returning vehicle out of the air instead of having it land on legs, an approach SpaceX has pursued as part of its push for rapid reusability.

A first for the ship, not the booster

As The Verge notes, this was not SpaceX's first tower catch overall. The company has previously performed chopstick catches of Super Heavy boosters on earlier launches. What is new here is the target: this is the first time the maneuver has been completed successfully on the Starship vehicle itself, the upper stage of the two-part launch system.

That distinction matters for the program's ambitions. Recovering both stages is the goal, and each half of the vehicle has now demonstrated a successful catch at least once, albeit on separate flights.

The booster was lost

The flight was not a complete success. The Verge reports that SpaceX aborted the planned catch of Flight 15's booster, and that the booster subsequently detonated over the Gulf of Mexico. The company is still investigating what caused the vehicle to abandon its landing attempt.

Because of that outcome, SpaceX was unable to recover the entire launch vehicle on this mission. The Verge points out, however, that since booster catches have worked on previous launches, there is reason to believe the failure is not an insurmountable obstacle.

Musk's expectations

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk addressed the uncertainty inherent in the test campaign during the company's third-quarter earnings call. "Success is not guaranteed on these first flights, but I'd say it's more likely than not that this succeeds next flight," he said, according to The Verge.

Why it matters

Starship's economics depend on making the entire launch vehicle reusable, and the tower catch is central to that plan: vehicles that return to the tower can be inspected, refurbished and reflown without the added weight and complexity of landing gear. Each stage of the system has now been caught at least once, which suggests the core engineering approach works for both the booster and the ship.

What remains is consistency. This flight demonstrated that the ship can be caught even as the booster was lost, and the cause of the booster's aborted landing is still unknown. The next step for SpaceX is diagnosing that failure and demonstrating that both halves of the vehicle can be recovered on the same flight, which is the milestone the program ultimately needs to hit.