In a first, SpaceX ‘catches’ megarocket booster after test flight

SpaceX successfully “catches” the first-stage booster of its Starship megarocket as it returns to the launch pad after a test flight, a world first in the company’s quest for rapid reusability.

After blasting off minutes earlier while attached to the Starship rocket, the “super heavy booster” made a picture-perfect controlled return to the same pad in Texas, where a pair of huge mechanical “chopsticks” reached out from the launch tower to bring the slowly descending booster to a halt, according to a livestream from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.

“Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books,” a SpaceX spokesperson says in a voiceover on the company’s livestream, after the booster is safely in the tower’s grasp and company staffers erupt in cheers.

“The tower has caught the rocket!!” SpaceX founder Musk posts on X.