SpaceX Catches Starship After First Return From Orbit to Texas

STARBASE, Texas, November 14, 2026 – SpaceX has caught the upper stage of its Starship rocket with mechanical arms at its South Texas launch tower, completing the vehicle’s first return from orbit to the site from which it lifted off a day earlier.

The catch, on the company’s 15th Starship test flight, is the first time the spacecraft itself has been recovered in this way. CNBC reported that the uncrewed upper stage flew around the Earth 14 times before descending to the tower, whose arms are nicknamed “chopsticks”. The launch complex’s tower is also known as Mechazilla. BBC News said SpaceX described the recovery as “picture perfect”.

“That was the Holy Grail of space flight, 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, according to AFP, as quoted by the BBC.

The landing capped a mixed mission. Starship and its Super Heavy booster lifted off on Friday from Pad 2 at Starbase, on the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX had hoped to catch both stages. The booster’s return to the tower was aborted and the first stage was diverted offshore, where it exploded shortly before reaching the water, CNBC and BBC News reported. The upper stage continued into orbit and, CNBC said, released 26 of SpaceX’s latest Starlink v3 satellites, expanding a constellation that already numbers more than 11,000 spacecraft in low Earth orbit.

Fully reusing both stages is central to SpaceX’s plans to fly Starship more often, to launch more Starlink satellites and, in the longer term, to carry cargo and crew beyond Earth orbit, including for NASA’s lunar programme. The company has previously caught Super Heavy boosters at the tower, but catching a ship returning from orbit is a harder manoeuvre because the vehicle must survive high-speed re-entry, then hover and be grasped by the arms.

Life News Agency earlier reported that Flight 15 had reached orbit and deployed its satellites after the booster was lost. Saturday’s catch is the first recovery of the upper stage and a distinct milestone on the same flight.

Why it matters

A rocket that can return from orbit and fly again would lower the cost of putting satellites, cargo and, eventually, people into space. Starship is already being used to launch Starlink spacecraft, and NASA is counting on a version of the vehicle as a lander in its Artemis moon programme. The failed booster recovery shows that fully reusable flight is not yet routine, even as the ship catch marks a clear step forward.

For Malaysia, the outcome is about more than a spectacle in Texas. Starlink is part of the country’s mix of satellite connectivity, and cheaper, more frequent heavy-lift launches would affect the cost and pace of the communications, Earth-observation and scientific missions that South-East Asian governments and companies want to fly. A more capable Starship also sharpens competition in a global launch market that Malaysia and its neighbours are trying to enter as they build their own space policies.

Sources: CNBC, BBC News, AFP (as quoted by BBC News). First flagged on X by Reuters. This account relies on independent reporting; no Reuters text or photographs have been used.

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