SpaceX chases first Starship catch after booster splashes down in Gulf

Starship blasted off from Texas on Friday for Flight 15, and the Ship has been circling Earth since. SpaceX wants to pluck it out of the sky with the launch tower's chopstick arms shortly after 4PM ET Saturday, a maneuver it has never attempted on the upper stage. The company is live-streaming the whole thing on its website and on X.

The booster half of the plan fell apart first. After Super Heavy V3 separated, it ran into a problem on the way down and called off the catch, changing course to splash into the Gulf, where it exploded before reaching the water. SpaceX has caught and reflown V1 Super Heavy boosters a couple of times before, so the booster catch itself isn't new territory — trying it on the V3 hardware alongside a Ship catch was.

Flight 15 still checked off a big box: 26 Starlink V3 satellites deployed to orbit. That happened while the Ship stayed up for roughly 22 hours after launch before beginning its descent. If the tower arms close around it, SpaceX lands the first double catch it set out to demonstrate — one half of which already slipped away.