SpaceX's Starship catch

Extracted Attributes

• Type

  Technological Achievement, Reusability Demonstration

• Mechanism

  Catching rocket stages (Super Heavy booster and Starship second stage) with tower arms ("chopsticks" or "Mechazilla")

• Primary Goal

  Achieve full reusability of Starship vehicle

• Significance

  Revolutionize cost per kilogram to orbit, bolster Starlink, enable Mars colonization, support NASA Artemis program

• Launch Location

  Starbase, Texas, USA

• Booster Type for First Catch

  Block 1 booster (Booster 12)

• First Successful Booster Catch Date

  2024-10-13

• Total Starship Launches (as of March 2025)

  9

• Starship Launch Failures (as of March 2025)

  5

• Starship Launch Successes (as of March 2025)

  4

Timeline

• SpaceX's Starship program begins its launch attempts. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2023-04-01

• The first successful catch of a Super Heavy booster (Booster 12) by the launch tower's "chopstick" arms occurs during Starship's fifth flight test. (Source: Web Search Results, Wikipedia)

  2024-10-13

• A Starship rocket launches, but the attempt to catch the booster is abandoned, resulting in a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2024-11-19

• Starship's seventh uncrewed test flight successfully duplicates the booster catch, but the Starship spacecraft itself is lost. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2025-01-16

• Starship's eighth test flight successfully catches the Super Heavy booster, but the Starship second stage is lost. (Source: Web Search Results)

  2025-03-06

List of Starship launches

Since April 2023, the SpaceX Starship has been launched 9 times, with 4 successes and 5 failures. The American company has developed Starship with the intention of lowering launch costs using economies of scale. It aims to achieve this by reusing both rocket stages, increasing payload mass to orbit, increasing launch frequency, creating a mass-manufacturing pipeline and adapting it to a wide range of space missions. Starship is the latest project in SpaceX's reusable launch system development program and plan to colonize Mars, and also one of two landing systems selected by NASA for the Artemis program's crewed Lunar missions. SpaceX calls the entire launch vehicle "Starship", which consists of the Super Heavy first stage (booster) and the ambiguously-named Starship second stage (ship). There are three versions of Starship: Block 1, (also known as Starship 1, Version 1, or V1) which is retired, Block 2, which first flew in Starship flight test 7, and Block 3, which is still in development. As of January 2025, 6 Block 1 vehicles and 3 Block 2 vehicles have flown; with the last Block 1 ship completing its mission in November 2024 (Starship flight test 6). Both Starship's first and second stages are planned to be reusable, and are planned to be caught by the tower arms used to assemble the rocket at the pad. This capability was first demonstrated during Starship's fifth flight test, using a Block 1 booster.

Web Search Results

• Replay! SpaceX Starship launches on flight 8, catches ...

  # Replay! SpaceX Starship launches on flight 8, catches booster but loses ship again ## VideoFromSpace 2020000 subscribers 3644 likes ### Description 274868 views Posted: 6 Mar 2025 SpaceX launched the eigth test flight of the Starship megarocket from Starbase in Texas on March 6, 2025. Starship's Super Heavy booster successfully separated, and returned to Earth and was caught by the "chopsticks" on the launch tower. Full Story: [...] covered in Saw and place six and we've got some radar sensors on the tower catch arms again as we're just looking at different ways to measure distance between the arms and a vehicle these ones are actually protected by kind of a modified version of our heat shield tiles catching the ship's going to be a little different from Catching the booster one of the key things is it's going to do that flip right before its Landing burn that rapidly reorients your antennas which you're using for [...] SpaceX lost communications Starship after it began to spin out of control about 8 minutes into flight. Credit: SpaceX

• Starship | Fifth Flight Test

  Following a successful liftoff, ascent, stage separation, boostback burn, and coast, the Super Heavy booster performed its landing burn and was caught by the chopstick arms of the launch and catch tower at Starbase. Thousands of distinct vehicle and pad criteria had to be met prior to the catch attempt, and thanks to the tireless work of SpaceX engineers, we succeeded with catch on our first attempt. [...] # Starship | Fifth Flight Test ## SpaceX 6790000 subscribers 100182 likes ### Description 3288939 views Posted: 6 Nov 2024 Starship’s fifth flight test lifted off on October 13, 2024, with our most ambitious test objectives yet as we work to demonstrate techniques fundamental to Starship and Super Heavy’s fully and rapidly reusable design. And on our first try, Mechazilla caught the booster. [...] Prior to catch, Starship executed another successful hot-staging separation, igniting its six Raptor engines and completing ascent into outer space. It coasted along its planned trajectory to the other side of the planet before executing a controlled reentry, passing through the phases of peak heating and maximum aerodynamic pressure, before executing a flip, landing burn, and splashdown at its target area in the Indian Ocean. The flight test concluded at splashdown 1 hour, 5 minutes and 40

• SpaceX executes 'chopsticks' booster catch but Starship spacecraft ...

  SpaceX’s colossal Starship launch system lifted off on its seventh uncrewed test flight Thursday, with an upgraded version of the megarocket embarking on the program’s most ambitious flight to date. SpaceX was able to duplicate its prior feat of catching a booster that returned to Earth. But 8.5 minutes into flight, the Starship spacecraft itself was lost. [...] Video shows SpaceX launch Starship test flight and catch booster 07:29 Meanwhile, outgoing NASA Administrator Bill Nelson shared his thoughts on X. “Congrats to @SpaceX on Starship’s seventh test flight and the second successful booster catch. Spaceflight is not easy. It’s anything but routine. That’s why these tests are so important — each one bringing us closer on our path to the Moon and onward to Mars through #Artemis.” [...] The company steered the Super Heavy booster squarely into the “chopsticks,” the metal arms of “Mechazilla,” which is SpaceX’s name for the launch tower that also serves as a structural mechanism for catching rocket parts as they blaze back down from the sky after launch. SpaceX had only successfully recaptured a Super Heavy booster after launch once before, during the fifth fully integrated Starship test flight in October 2024.

• SpaceX launches Starship rocket, but abandons attempt to catch ...

  SpaceX launches Starship rocket, but abandons attempt to catch booster at launch site ===================================================================================== Science Nov 19, 2024 5:56 PM EDT SpaceX on Tuesday launched another Starship rocket, but passed up catching the booster with giant mechanical arms. [...] Trump announces Musk and Ramaswamy will lead outside advisory group ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ By Colleen Long, Jill Colvin, Associated Press WATCH: Returning SpaceX Crew-8 NASA astronauts discuss their 235-day mission in space By Marcia Dunn, Associated Press In engineering feat by SpaceX, mechanical arms catch Starship booster back at its launch pad By Marcia Dunn, Associated Press [...] Unlike last month’s success, the booster was directed to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The catch was called off just four minutes into the test flight from Texas for unspecified reasons, and the booster hit the water three minutes later. Not all of the criteria for a booster catch was met and so the flight director did not command the booster to return to the launch site, said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. He did not specifying what went wrong.

• SpaceX Starship - Wikipedia

  lifted onto OLM A.( The first catch of a booster occurred on October 13, 2024, using Booster 12.( [...] Super Heavy on a trajectory for a controlled descent to the launch site using its grid fins for minor course corrections. Roughly six minutes after launch, shortly before landing,( it ignites its inner 13 engines, then shuts off all but the inner 3,( to perform a landing burn which slows it sufficiently to be caught by a pair of hydraulic actuating arms attached to the launch tower.( The booster landing and catch was successfully demonstrated for the first time on October 13, 2024, with the [...] header tanks,( to perform a "landing flip" maneuver to return to a vertical orientation, with the Raptor engines' gimbaling helping to maneuver the craft.( The HLS and depot cannot reenter the atmosphere, as they lack a thermal protection system, flaps, and other necessary catch hardware.