SpaceX plans first Starship and booster catch attempt

SpaceX plans to try catching Starship and its Super Heavy booster on the vehicle’s next flight, which Elon Musk said is expected next month. The goal is to recover the entire orbital launch system for the first time. Musk said a successful attempt would be the first full recovery of an orbital launch vehicle in history.

Speaking during SpaceX’s third-quarter earnings report on Tuesday, Musk called the effort “a profound technology milestone in the history of civilization consciousness.” He cautioned that success is not guaranteed on the first attempts, though he said he thought the next flight was more likely than not to succeed. If it does not, he said, SpaceX has a steady stream of Starship flight attempts planned through the end of this year, followed by an accelerated pace next year.

Starship is a two-stage system: the Super Heavy booster is the first stage, and the Starship spacecraft is the second. The vehicle is approximately 120 to 124 meters (394 to 407 feet) tall and 9 meters in diameter. Its Raptor engines burn liquid methane and liquid oxygen.

First introduced in 2018, Starship was designed to return to its launch site, where mechanical arms on launch towers—nicknamed “chopsticks”—are intended to catch it in mid-air. Neither the booster nor the spacecraft was recovered after the previous launch.