Musk Makes Spaceflight History: Starship Caught by Mechanical Arms

Elon Musk's SpaceX makes history with Starship's booster recovery using "chopstick" arms, marking a major step towards fully reusable rockets.

An Unprecedented New Rocket Recovery Method

At this moment, the whole world is cheering.

Last night, Elon Musk’s SpaceX achieved another monumental feat – capturing a returning booster rocket using mechanical arms on the launch tower, known as the “chopsticks” rocket catch.

With the successful fifth test flight of Starship, SpaceX marked a new “world-first,” taking a significant step toward making the super heavy rocket "Super Heavy" fully reusable, just like the Falcon 9 rocket.

In the previous test flight in June of this year, the booster performed a similar set of maneuvers but ultimately crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

Returning to this test flight, Musk expressed strong confidence before the flight.

There were two main goals for this test: the first was to attempt to "catch" the Super Heavy booster at the launch site for the first time, and the second was for the Starship to perform a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.