After canceling a planned capture of the Starship Flight 15 booster, SpaceX successfully captured Starship with its “Mechazilla” launch and capture tower for the first time. The company has performed “wand” captures on its boosters before, but this is the first time the maneuver has been successfully performed on the Starship vehicle itself.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call that “success is not guaranteed on these first flights, but I would say it’s more likely than not that it will be successful on the next flight.” Although not a complete success, as the company was unable to recover the entire launch vehicle, it is nonetheless an important milestone for the Starship program. And since it has already caught boosters in previous launches, there is reason to believe that today’s failure was not an insurmountable obstacle. SpaceX is still trying to determine what caused the booster to abort its landing and explode over the Gulf of Mexico.
In the video above, you can watch Starship dive through the clouds, flip vertically, and, with surprising grace, slip into Mechazilla’s waiting arms around 4:20 p.m. ET.
Gn bussni
