SpaceX’s effort to bring its entire Starship vehicle back to the launch site ended in disappointment Friday when the booster veered offshore, fell into the Gulf of Mexico and exploded. The spacecraft, however, successfully reached orbit in the company’s most ambitious test flight to date.
Rather than returning to the Texas launch pad after liftoff, the first-stage booster was redirected toward a recovery zone over the water.
The setback did not stop the spacecraft’s mission. Barring additional problems, Starship will make its own approach to the launch site Saturday. The flight could continue for up to 22 hours.
This marks the first time Starship has attempted to come back from orbit and be seized in midair by the mechanical arms mounted on the launch tower. With the booster lost, SpaceX missed the opportunity for a simultaneous catch of both stages.
The company’s broader objective is to recover every part of the rocket so it can eventually be reused—an achievement no space program has yet managed.
Elon Musk believes that capability will enable the rapid, dependable launch cadence needed to build bases on the moon and support future missions to Mars.
After reaching orbit, Starship released 26 of SpaceX’s most advanced Starlink satellites. The vehicle is expected to complete 15 trips around Earth at an altitude of roughly 170 miles before returning to the launch site for Saturday’s planned finale.
SpaceX had successfully caught the booster three times at its sprawling Starbase facility near the US-Mexico border, making Friday’s failed recovery attempt particularly unexpected.
“Well, that certainly isn’t the news that we had hoped to hear for today,” SpaceX launch commentator Kate Tice said. She noted that diverting the booster was consistent with the company’s extensive safety procedures designed to protect the launch pad. SpaceX did not explain what caused the failure.
Friday’s flight was the first test of the upgraded booster, which stands 236 feet (72 meters) tall and is intended to serve as the production model for lunar and Martian missions. It was also the first attempt to catch the spacecraft itself, which measures 171 feet (52 meters) long.
Combined, the two stages create the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, standing 407 feet (124 meters) tall.
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The spacecraft sections from Starship’s previous 14 flights all ended up in the ocean, either as planned at the end of a mission or after breaking apart in fiery debris. On the first full-scale test in 2023, several engines failed to ignite before the tumbling rocket’s self-destruct system was triggered.
The previous test, conducted in September, was the first to reach orbit, but SpaceX made no attempt to recover either rocket stage.
SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida within months and from Louisiana in the coming years.
Expanded launch infrastructure and complete rocket reusability are “how you go from zero launches to 10 to 100 to 1,000 to 10,000 to 100,000,” Kiko Dontchev, SpaceX’s vice president of launch, said at a NASA technology summit last week at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
SpaceX’s smaller Falcon rockets will continue flying from Cape Canaveral, carrying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, and from California, where they will launch Starlink satellites. Other satellites will also continue using Falcon rockets for now. Musk ultimately wants Starship to replace the Falcon fleet.
“Falcon rockets are still not fully reusable. We still throw that second stage away every single flight. Starship, we’re going to catch both the first stage and second stage,” Dontchev said before Friday’s launch.
NASA is paying SpaceX billions of dollars to use Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the moon. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is the company’s main competitor in that effort.
NASA plans to decide one year before the Artemis IV lunar landing—slated to be the first astronaut moon landing in more than half a century—whether astronauts will reach the surface aboard Musk’s Starship or Bezos’ Blue Moon.
During next summer’s Artemis III mission, astronauts will practice docking their capsule with a Blue Moon and then with a Starship in Earth orbit. Those demonstrations are intended to pave the way for an Artemis lunar landing as early as 2028.
“We are looking forward to some of that on-orbit Starlink capability on Artemis III,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman wrote on X after Starship reached orbit.
