SpaceX fails to catch Starship rocket stages during test flight
The Super Heavy booster ended up in the Gulf after a technical issue prevented the planned mid-air recovery attempt.
SpaceX failed to recover both stages of its Starship rocket during an ambitious test flight on Friday, according to reports from The Times of India, BBC News and Mint.
The company intended to perform a double catch using mechanical arms, nicknamed chopsticks, on its launch tower in Texas to grab the rocket parts mid-air as they returned to Earth.
The attempt was thwarted when the Super Heavy booster ended up in the Gulf. SpaceX stated it would not attempt to recover the booster due to a technical issue.
The 22-hour mission aimed to demonstrate the recovery of both the booster and the upper stage, known as the Ship, to make the entire rocket reusable.
If successful, the test would have been the first full recovery of a rocket that has been to space, which Elon Musk sees as key to building Moon bases and sending humans to Mars.
The Ship was scheduled to deploy 26 Starlink satellites and complete 14 or 15 orbits around the Earth before attempting a second catch on Saturday.