SpaceX catches Starship upper stage with tower arms in first

SpaceX captured the spacecraft section of its Starship rocket after it returned from orbit on Saturday, according to CNBC Technology. The company used mechanical arms fixed to a launch tower at its Starbase site in Texas to make the catch. The arms are known as chopsticks, and the tower is nicknamed Mechazilla.

The grab came one day after the booster failed to be recovered. During the first part of the flight on Friday, SpaceX sent the booster toward a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico instead of catching it, and it blew up before reaching the water.

The upper stage kept flying and circled Earth 14 times before settling onto the tower. Test Flight 15 was the company's most ambitious Starship attempt so far and the first in which it tried to catch both parts of the rocket. Elon Musk, the company's founder, shared a video on X of himself inspecting the spacecraft once it was secured.

Two unrelated orders affected air travel on Friday. The Hawaii Department of Transportation briefly halted some flights on the West Coast because of possible debris from the launch. The FAA also issued a nationwide ground stop after telecommunications systems failed. Both orders have been lifted.

Getting Starship to fly often and be fully reusable matters for the company's plans. In the short term, SpaceX wants the rocket to carry more satellites so it can grow Starlink, its satellite internet service, which is currently its profit center. The company is also expected to use Starship to move astronauts and cargo between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface for NASA. Musk has said he wants the vehicle to help settle Mars and make humanity multi-planetary.

Friday's flight also placed 26 Starlink v3 satellites in orbit, adding to a network that already held more than 11,000 satellites in low Earth orbit. SpaceX has said a single Starship can carry as many as 60 of the v3 satellites at once.