SpaceX Catches Starship with Launch Tower Arms After 22-Hour Orbit

ANKARA, Nov 15 (OPA) — The 52-meter Starship rocket descended through heavy clouds above SpaceX's Starbase launch site in South Texas on Saturday, re-igniting its engines before settling vertically into the tower's mechanical arms, known as Mechazilla. The spacecraft's exterior was blackened by extreme temperatures encountered during atmospheric entry, where its orbital speed reached approximately 27,000 kilometers per hour. Despite the successful retrieval of the upper stage, the Super Heavy booster failed to return to the launch tower, diverging from its descent trajectory for an unspecified reason and exploding over the Gulf of Mexico after being directed to a designated point.

The 15th test flight marks the longest mission to date for the multi-billion-dollar Starship development program, which NASA and SpaceX plan to use for returning humans to the moon by 2028. While the upper stage completed its grueling journey, SpaceX fell short of its goal to recover both sections of the rocket during a single mission. The heat shield composed of black hexagonal tiles, designed to protect the spacecraft against extreme atmospheric entry heat, also remains unready for full reusability, prompting ongoing redesign efforts by engineers to minimize maintenance requirements between flights.

SpaceX currently dominates the global launch sector largely through its Falcon 9 rocket, which has flown more than 700 times since 2010. While the first stage of the Falcon 9 is routinely recovered and reused, its second stage is expended into the ocean after every orbital delivery. Company leadership aims to transition Starship into a fully reusable transportation system capable of rapid turnaround flights comparable to commercial aircraft, though achieving both-stage recovery in a single mission remains an unfulfilled objective.

The latest test flight provides crucial engineering data as SpaceX advances toward its long-term interplanetary transport goals. Engineers continue analyzing performance metrics from the atmospheric descent and structural loads sustained during the maneuver. Further test flights will address the anomalies observed with the Super Heavy booster and refine the heat shield durability required for routine operations.