SpaceX completes historic 'catch' at Texas base after Starship returns to Earth

STARBASE, Texas - SpaceX successfully completed a historic "catch" as its Starship returned to the South Texas base Saturday after blasting off from the same spot Friday evening.

Timeline:

The launch window for Flight 15 opened at 4:45 p.m. CT.

The company aimed for this to be the first time that both Starship and the Super Heavy Rocket that it rides to space on return to the launch site. However, the rocket was forced to splash down in the Gulf in a fiery crash.

SpaceX said that their recovery teams have located the spent rocket and are monitoring Texas beaches for any debris that washes ashore.

The return of the upper-stage Starship went as planned, with the spacecraft completing a historic landing at the launch site on Saturday afternoon. It marked the first capture of a Starship flying back from space. 

The Starship flight lasted about 22 hours as the craft orbited Earth 14 times and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites.

SpaceX said there were alternate plans to have Starship splashdown in the ocean if things went awry. However, that situation was avoided. 

Flight 15 comes less than 2 months after Flight 14

The backstory:

Starship’s Flight 14 in September saw the spacecraft achieve orbit of Earth and the deployment of Starlink satellites.

However, the mission was cut short and Starship was forced to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean about three hours after launch.

Starship’s importance to SpaceX

What's next:

The ultimate goal of Elon Musk’s SpaceX is to use Starship to carry settlers to Mars.

Before that long-term goal, the company will be part of NASA’s Artemis III mission slated for the summer of 2027. That flight will test a complex orbital docking exercise between an Orion capsule used by NASA to send astronauts to the Moon and lunar landers from SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Moon.

Artemis IV, slated for no sooner than 2028, aims to send humans back to the Moon’s surface.

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