SpaceX Catches Starship With Its Tower’s ‘Chopsticks’ for the First Time: ‘Now Everything Changes’

SpaceX caught the upper stage of its Starship rocket with the giant mechanical arms of its launch tower on Saturday, the first time the company has caught a Starship upper stage, CNBC reported.

The ship, known as Ship 42, settled into the tower’s “chopsticks” at Starbase, Texas, at about 4:20 p.m. ET, roughly 22.5 hours after Flight 15 lifted off Friday, Space.com reported. It had circled Earth 14 times before coming home, CNBC said.

“That was the holy grail of spaceflight, plummeting through fire to be snatched out of the air by steel,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot said on the company’s landing webcast, according to Space.com. “We caught a Starship, and now everything changes.”

SpaceX posted video of the catch on X. “Mechazilla catches Starship! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on this incredible achievement!” the company wrote, using its nickname for the tower.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk followed with his own post. “Congratulations to an incredible team at SpaceX!!!” he wrote.

Half of the double catch

Flight 15 was the first time SpaceX tried to catch both stages of the rocket, CNBC noted. The Super Heavy booster was diverted Friday to an offshore splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, as Conservative Daily News reported, and it exploded before hitting the water, CNBC said.

Space.com reported that the booster diverted after a low-fuel alarm. SpaceX is still working to determine what caused the booster to abort its landing, The Verge reported.

The company has caught Super Heavy boosters on three earlier test flights, Space.com said, but had never tried it with the ship. The upper stage is a harder target because it flies higher and faster, and on this flight it came all the way back from orbit.

SpaceX called the catch “picture perfect,” the BBC reported. The Associated Press described the ship being “caught in midair by giant mechanical arms where its journey began 22 hours earlier,” in its report.

Why it matters

A fully reusable Starship is central to SpaceX’s plans, CNBC reported. The company needs the rocket to launch more of its Starlink internet satellites, and NASA plans to use Starship to carry astronauts and cargo to the Moon’s surface.

The flight also released 26 of SpaceX’s newest Starlink V3 satellites, CNBC said. Starlink cameras and ground cameras checked Ship 42’s heat shield before Saturday’s landing attempt and found it in good shape, Space.com reported.

SpaceX says catching both stages will allow faster inspection, refurbishment and reflight of the vehicle, according to Space.com, and the company is expected to try the double catch again on the next flight.

The catch quickly took over X. “SpaceX,” “Starship,” “Mechazilla” and “Congratulations Elon” were all among the top U.S. trends Saturday afternoon.

The video of the catch is available on SpaceX’s X account.

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