SpaceX has caught the upper stage of its giant Starship rocket for the first time, after it returned to Earth following a test flight into space.
About 20 hours after launch, Starship returned to the Starbase spaceport in southern Texas, where it was caught by mechanical arms attached to the launch tower.
It marked the first time SpaceX had attempted to catch the upper stage, in a major milestone for the company’s reusable rocket program.
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The test flight had earlier suffered a setback when its lower stage splashed down in the sea and burst into flames, rather than being caught by the launch tower as planned.
The company, owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, initially gave no information about the possible cause of the failure. The lower stage, known as the Super Heavy booster, had been successfully caught during three previous test flights.
The upper stage, also called Starship, entered Earth’s orbit shortly after separating from the booster and deployed satellites for SpaceX’s internet service Starlink.
It then completed several orbits around Earth before returning to the launch site.
Starship’s previous test flight took place in September, when the rocket reached Earth’s orbit for the first time before making a controlled splashdown in the Pacific Ocean about three hours later.
Standing about 120m tall, Starship is the largest rocket system ever built, with both stages designed to be reusable.
The system was first tested in April 2023, when it exploded minutes after launch. Subsequent test flights have had mixed success.
NASA plans to use Starship to send astronauts to the moon, while SpaceX hopes eventually to reach Mars.
