INTERNATIONAL DESK — Elon Musk's SpaceX on Saturday pulled off the first-ever "catch" of a spaceship, a technical feat showing the feasibility of fully reusable rockets that would bring affordable spaceflight one step closer to reality. The Starship emerged from the clouds after surviving the extreme heat of re-entering Earth's atmosphere, then descended slowly over SpaceX's south Texas Starbase before slipping smoothly between mechanical "chopstick arms" above Launch Pad 2.
The success marked a milestone in the space industry's decades-long pursuit of fully reusable rocket systems — a goal that can drastically reduce mission costs and make more frequent launches possible. "That was the Holy Grail of spaceflight, plummeting through fire to be snatched out of the air by steel. We caught a Starship and now, everything changes," SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said.
Crowds outside Starbase broke into ecstatic cheers as the spaceship came into view, with 1977 soft rock hit "Baby Come Back" serving as the soundtrack of the nerve-wracking final descent on SpaceX's official livestream. "I really do believe this is the dawn of the space age," said Dane Walter, 38, a spectator who came from Corpus Christi, Texas. "And truly, I consider it an equivalent moment to the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk." It was the 15th test flight of the world's biggest and most powerful rocket system.
Up until now, spaceships have been single-use items, discarded or destroyed after missions, making each launch an expensive, resource-intensive venture. The Starship spacecraft that gives SpaceX's rocket system its name orbited Earth 14 times and deployed 26 satellites for Musk's Starlink internet constellation during its 22-hour journey. SpaceX had previously captured returning booster rockets three times.