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Setback for SpaceX Starship rocket's double-catch test

Rebecca Morelle,Science Editorand
Alison Francis,Senior science journalist
Reuters In the foreground at the bottom of the picture is the ocean. Above that is a line of low hills in the distance. In the middle of the shot, above the land is a large fireball with a white column poking out beneath it. that is the booster section of the rocket as it falls into the ocean after being aborted from an attempted catch by the " chopstick arms" on the launch tower. Reuters
The lower stage of the rocket was diverted to the ocean as it burst into flames

SpaceX aborted its attempt to catch the bottom part of its huge Starship rocket during its latest test flight.

The aim was to catch it using the mechanical arms - nicknamed chopsticks - on the launch tower as it returned to Earth, but instead it was diverted to the ocean, bursting into flames as it came down.

The top part of the rocket is now continuing its journey to space, and SpaceX will decide whether it will try to catch this rocket stage - at about 1515 local time (2115 GMT) on Saturday.

It's the company's first attempt to fully recover its rocket, paving the way for making Starship fully reusable so it can fly repeatedly and reduce costs.

SpaceX The Starship rocket is blasting off in the middle of the picture. The top part of the rocket is black, and the lower part is white. The launch tower can be just seen behind it. At the bottom, a huge white plume is billowing as the rocket heads upwards, glowing orange in some places. The sky in the background is bright blue.SpaceX
Starship is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built

The 124m-tall rocket successfully blasted off from the Starbase launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas at 1645 local time (2245 GMT) on Friday.

It was supposed to catch the bottom part of the rocket - the Super Heavy booster - six and a half minutes later when it returned to the launch tower, but instead it was diverted to the ocean.

During a stream of the launch, a SpaceX spokesperson said: "Safety is always the number one priority, and we're still testing out things that we haven't done before on these vehicles, and so we are prioritising making sure that we can perform each maneuver safely."

The top part of the rocket, called the Ship, is continuing its journey to space, where it is deploying 26 satellites. These will form part of the Starlink constellation that provides high-speed internet from space.

The Ship is due to complete 14 orbits around the Earth before returning to the launch tower 22.5 hours after taking off, where a second catch may be attempted.

Until now, SpaceX has managed to catch the Super Heavy Booster on three earlier test flights.

But the upper stage of the rocket, which only reached orbit for the first time in September, has never been grabbed by the chopsticks. Instead it's splashed down in the ocean.

Before the flight, SpaceX said it would only decide to try to catch the Ship after carefully assessing the vehicle while it's in space.

If any problems are detected there are various points during the flight when the rocket stage can be brought down in the ocean.

SpaceX There is a dark black sky which takes up the top two thirds of the picture. In the foreground and slightly to the right is a large, upright, white rocket which is standing on a grey undulating surface. Away in the distance in the dark, black sky is a blue planet which is just above the horizon of the grey, featureless surface of the Moon. It has a horizontal row of lights towards the top of the cigar shaped rocket. SpaceX
A SpaceX lander could take astronauts down to the surface of the Moon

Building a fully reusable rocket is a long-held ambition for SpaceX.

In 2015, it became the first company to vertically land part of a rocket with its Falcon 9 booster.

Falcon 9 rockets now fly more than a hundred times a year, and the ability to reuse the bottom part of the rocket has dramatically cut the costs of launch.

But landing an entire Starship rocket could take this to the next level, says Prof Malcolm Macdonald, President of Royal Aeronautical Society.

"Full reusability has the potential to fundamentally change the economics of accessing space," he said.

"One successful flight will not prove that model, but it could mark an important transition: from demonstrating that Starship can fly, to demonstrating how Starship could operate."

After SpaceX went public earlier this year, its shareholders will be carefully monitoring this flight, as will the US Space Agency.

The progress of Starship has direct implications for Nasa's attempt to land humans on the Moon in 2028 - a highly ambitious timeline.

SpaceX has been given a Nasa contract to configure the Ship into a lander that will eventually take astronauts down to the lunar surface.

But it's not the only company working with the US Space Agency. Blue Origin, owned by rival tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, also has a contract to use its New Glenn rocket and lander for the Moon touch down.

Both companies will also play a key role in Artemis III, which is currently planned for summer 2027- another challenging schedule.

This mission will see four astronauts in Nasa's Orion spacecraft attempt to dock with both SpaceX and Blue Origin's landers.

Starship will need to make a lot of progress in the coming months to meet these commitments - the pace of the rocket's development has been far slower than SpaceX had intended.

But Blue Origin also has much work to do. The company suffered a major setback earlier this year when its rocket exploded, totally destroying its launchpad in Florida.

Blue Origin had said they would be back in action by the end of this year, but a return to flight has now been delayed to early in 2027.

Nasa is under pressure to meet its timelines. Its administrator Jared Isaacman has said America is in a race with China to get to the Moon. China plans to land its Taikonauts on the lunar surface by 2030.