SpaceX’s Starship Returns From Orbit And Is Captured By Launch Pad Arms In A Dramatic First

详细摘要

SpaceX’s Starship is back on Earth, captured in midair by giant mechanical arms at its Texas launch pad. CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX’s Starship made a triumphant return to…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX’s Starship made a triumphant return to Earth on Saturday, caught in midair by giant mechanical arms where its journey began 22 hours earlier.

It was the grand finale that Elon Musk and his team hoped for — the first-ever capture of a Starship flying back from space. But with the first-stage booster exploding shortly after Friday’s liftoff from Texas, the company fell short of its desired double catch.

Wreckage remained in the Gulf of Mexico, cordoned off by buoys, as the stainless steel, bullet-shaped spacecraft lowered itself upright at the launch pad.

The dramatic, sci-fi-like capture helped blot out the booster’s messy miss.

SpaceX officials said Saturday’s catch demonstrates the full reusability of Starship, intended for moon and Mars travel. Although Friday’s booster recovery failed, the company had already made three previous booster catches, validating the technique.

NASA welcomed Saturday’s news. The space agency is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon later this decade and help build a permanent lunar base. Musk’s ambitions are even grander: He wants to launch a fleet of Starships to build a city on Mars.

The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — a 407-foot (124-meter) behemoth — blasted off late Friday afternoon from SpaceX’s Starship base near the U.S.-Mexican border. Separating neatly from its booster before things went awry, the upper-stage spacecraft soared into orbit and released 26 advanced Starlink satellites.

Starship continued circling the world 165 miles (265 kilometers) up, with live views of itself and Earth streaming down via Starlink. The spacecraft completed 14 laps around Earth, outshining the previous mission’s one to two laps.

It was SpaceX’s 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and its only second trip to orbit.

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