SpaceX's spaceship 'caught' midair after return from orbit, acing test for reusable rockets

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Starship has returned to Earth from orbit and has — for the first time — been caught by giant mechanical arms.

SpaceX on Sunday AEDT carried out the first-ever recovery of a spaceship, pulling off a successful "catch" of its Starship vessel as it returned to its launch site after a day in orbit.

The spaceship emerged from a cloudy sky after withstanding the extreme heat of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, and descended slowly over Starbase before slipping smoothly between mechanical "chopstick arms" above Launch Pad 2.

The feat 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 space flight, plummeting through fire to be snatched out of the air by steel. We caught a Starship and now, everything changes," SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said.

Crowds gathered on the Gulf of Mexico beach near Starbase broke into cheers as the spaceship eased into its high-tech nest on the 15th test flight of the world's biggest and most powerful rocket system.

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This time the Starship spacecraft that gives the rocket system its name orbited Earth 14 times and deployed 26 satellites for Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet constellation during its 22-hour journey.

Until now SpaceX had captured returning booster rockets three times. However, the "catch" of Starship was extraordinarily complex because the spaceship fell much faster and from a much higher altitude than boosters do.

Clayton Swope, an aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called the mission a "huge technical achievement and proves the whole idea of Starship as a fully reusable spaceship can work."

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