SpaceX’s 15th Starship test flight ended Saturday, November 14, with the spacecraft completing a 22.5-hour journey around Earth before descending into Mechazilla’s arms at Starbase, Texas.
- The successful recovery came after Starship completed 14 orbits around Earth.
- During its journey, the spacecraft deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, with contact established with all 26 shortly after deployment.
- Starship then began its return journey by firing one of its engines for a deorbit burn, before facing the heat of atmospheric reentry as it slowed from orbital speeds of approximately 17,000 miles per hour.
Elon Musk-led Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX) has pulled off a historic first with Starship, returning from orbit to its Texas launch site and getting caught by the giant mechanical arms of its launch tower, the “Mechazilla.”
This marks a major milestone in Musk and SpaceX’s push to make rockets fully reusable.
SpaceX shares fell nearly 0.6% in Friday’s regular trading and fell over 2% further during the afterhours session.
Starship Returns To Earth For Historic Mechazilla Catch
SpaceX’s 15th Starship test flight ended Saturday, November 14, with the spacecraft completing a 22.5-hour journey around Earth before descending into the waiting arms of Mechazilla at Starbase, Texas. It was the longest mission yet for the spacecraft.
Standing 171 feet tall, Starship emerged from thick clouds over Starbase on Saturday, reignited its engines to flip into a vertical position and slowly descended toward the launch tower while its engines roared.
Two small fittings near the top of the spacecraft hooked onto the tower’s mechanical arms, allowing Starship to hang several hundred feet above the ground. Its engines then shut down, leaving the spacecraft suspended in the arms of Mechazilla.
The successful recovery came after Starship completed 14 orbits around Earth. During its journey, the spacecraft deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, with contact established with all 26 shortly after deployment.
Starship then began its return journey by firing one of its engines for a deorbit burn, before facing the heat of atmospheric reentry as it slowed from orbital speeds of approximately 17,000 miles per hour.
Musk celebrated the achievement on X, sharing photos and videos from the launch tower and declaring, “Ship 42 looks great!”
However, the mission was not without setbacks. The Super Heavy booster, which carried Starship into space, failed to return to the launch pad as planned. Its boostback burn ended early because of low fuel mass, triggering an automated abort that diverted the booster to an offshore landing location in the Gulf of Mexico.
Why Starship’s Historic Catch Matters For SpaceX
The successful catch marks a crucial step toward Musk’s ambition of developing a fully reusable rocket system that can travel to space and return with minimal refurbishment, much like a commercial airplane.
SpaceX’s current workhorse, the Falcon 9, has launched more than 700 times since 2010. While its first stage can be recovered and reused, its second stage, which is responsible for delivering payloads into orbit, is discarded after every flight.
Starship is designed to change that equation by making both stages of the rocket reusable. Saturday’s achievement, however, recovered only the upper-stage spacecraft. SpaceX has yet to successfully bring both Starship and its Super Heavy booster back to the launch site in a single mission.
SpaceX has spent more than $15 billion developing Starship, while NASA has committed $3.2 billion under a contract worth more than $4 billion to use the spacecraft as a lunar lander for its Artemis program.
NASA expects Starship and Blue Origin’s lunar lander to support crewed missions to the moon as early as 2028, although several major technical milestones remain. This includes the demonstration of complex fuel transfers between Starship tanker spacecraft in orbit, which is a critical capability needed for missions beyond Earth’s orbit, including trips to the moon and eventually Mars.
What Retail Investors Think Of SPCX Stock
Retail sentiment on Stocktwits around SpaceX trended in the ‘bullish’ territory at the time of writing.
SPCX stock is down 7% year-to-date. The S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) are up 12% over the past 12 months.
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