What Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship Catch Means for Moon Missions

Detailed summary

Starship can’t leave Earth carrying all the rocket fuel, or propellant, it needs to reach orbit and then continue to the Moon. SpaceX therefore plans to refuel Starship in orbit,…

SpaceX has caught a Starship spacecraft returning from orbit for the first time, completing a dramatic test that could eventually make repeated launches cheaper and faster. But the company must still master another, arguably more complicated, operation before Starship can take astronauts to the Moon: Refueling in orbit.

The upper-stage spacecraft returned to SpaceX’s Starbase facility in South Texas on Saturday, November 14, after spending approximately 22 hours in space and completing 14 orbits of Earth. As it approached the ground, Starship slowed itself, moved upright, and descended between two giant mechanical arms attached to its launch tower. The arms then closed around the spacecraft and held it above the ground.

It was the first time SpaceX had caught the Starship upper stage after an orbital flight. The company had previously used the tower to catch three “first stage” boosters, which form the lower part of the rocket that helps launch Starship into space.

The booster’s engines stopped firing too soon as it returned following Friday’s launch. Its guidance system determined that it wasn’t positioned correctly for a tower catch, so it diverted it toward the Gulf of Mexico, where engineers are currently investigating the cause.

Catching Starship at its launch site is central to SpaceX’s ambition to produce a fully and rapidly reusable rocket. Avoiding an ocean recovery means the spacecraft can, in principle, be inspected, refueled, and flown again without first being transported back from a distant landing area.

That rapid turnaround matters because future lunar missions are expected to require several Starship launches rather than one. SpaceX’s long-term strategy calls for both the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft to return to their launch towers, allowing the same hardware to fly repeatedly instead of building a new rocket for every mission.

Saturday’s test showed that the upper stage could survive both the orbital flight and re-entry, complete a…

SpaceX…

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