SpaceX arms catch Starship booster in 'magic chopsticks maneuver'

Marcia Dunnap

SpaceX launched its enormous Starship rocket yesterday on its boldest test flight yet, catching the returning booster back at the pad with mechanical arms.

Towering almost 121 meters, the empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border.

It arced over the Gulf of Mexico like the four Starships before it that ended up being destroyed, either soon after liftoff or while ditching into the sea. The last one in June was the most successful yet, completing its flight without exploding.

This time, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk upped the challenge and risk. The first-stage booster was brought back to land at the pad from which it had soared seven minutes earlier. The launch tower sported monstrous metal arms, dubbed chopsticks, that caught the 71-meter booster.

"The tower has caught the rocket!!" Musk said via X.

His staff screamed in joy as the booster slowly lowered itself into the launch tower's arms.

"Even in this day and age, what we just saw is magic," SpaceX's Dan Huot said near the launch site. "I am shaking right now."

Kate Tice from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, said: "Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books."

It was up to the flight director to decide, in real time with a manual control, whether to attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in good, stable condition. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the gulf like the previous ones.

The retro-looking stainless Starship continued around the world once free of the booster, completing a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean, where it sank to the bottom. The flight lasted just over an hour.

ASSOCIATED PRESS