SpaceX Starship Test: Auffangversuch Fails, But Upper Stage Caught Successfully
SpaceX caught the upper stage of its Starship rocket with mechanical arms at the launch tower in Texas during its 15th test flight on Saturday marking a world first in spaceflight history, according to WELT.
Engineers managed to capture the roughly 50-meter-long upper stage while it hovered in the air at around 15:20 local time, shielding the 146-meter-high launch tower from potential damage, WELT reported. Industry experts estimate the rocket stage weighs between 100 and 150 tonnes.
The upper stage deployed 26 next-generation Starlink internet satellites into orbit and circled the Earth 14 times before returning, WELT reported.
Capturing the upper stage is significantly more difficult than catching the lower booster because the spacecraft returns from orbit at much higher speeds and altitudes, according to science.ORF.at. SpaceX has successfully caught the Super Heavy booster three times in previous tests.
While the upper stage catch succeeded, the lower booster experienced a setback after launching from Starbase in southeast Texas, Finanzen.net reported. The booster returned toward Earth but suffered complications, initiated an automated abort, and crashed controllably into the sea in flames.
“Der Booster hatte etwas zu wenig Treibstoff,” said Elon Musk, technology entrepreneur, as quoted by WELT. Musk said that his company views failures and setbacks as a necessary part of the development process.
SpaceX said that the exact cause of the booster failure is still under investigation. Der Standard said that despite the booster loss, the overall flight demonstrated major technological progress for the heavy-lift vehicle.
Catching both stages aims to achieve complete reusability for orbital rockets, a feat described by science.ORF.at as a spaceflight first. Clayton Swope, aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), stated to science.ORF.at, “Bisher hat das noch niemand so richtig geschafft.”
Musk plans to conduct 10,000 Starship launches annually by 2030 to drastically reduce launch costs and enable extremely short turnaround times, WELT reported. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved up to 44 launches per year at the Texas site, while plans are underway for a massive new spaceport in Louisiana featuring ten to twelve launch towers with an estimated investment of 100 billion dollars.
The Starship vehicle is also central to NASA plans for returning astronauts to the moon before the end of 2028, science.ORF.at reported. Musk additionally intends to use the rocket to transport artificial intelligence data centers into space and eventually reach Mars.
Alongside the flight test, SpaceX faces a congressional inquiry regarding the throttling of satellite internet service in Ukraine, Finanzen.net reported. Democratic senators taking the majority in January demanded that SpaceX preserve all documents related to speed restrictions on Starlink and its military variant Starshield.