SpaceX Calls Off Catch Attempt of Starship Rocket Booster in New Test Flight

The SpaceX Starship lifts off from Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on Nov. 19, 2024, for the Starship Flight 6 test. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket launched successfully from Boca Chica, Texas, on Nov. 19, but the aerospace company was unable to return the craft’s booster to the launchpad after doing so for the first time in October.

The launch was Starship’s sixth test flight, taking off from SpaceX’s Texas launch facilities at 5 p.m. EDT. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, detailed the objectives for Starship Flight 6 in a post on X.

The company hoped to restart the rocket’s Raptor engines in a vacuum, land the ship during daylight hours, conduct higher peak heating and steeper reentry of the rocket, and undertake a faster and harder booster catch by the launchpad’s mechanical arms, according to the post.

On Starship’s fifth test flight on Oct. 13, the large launchpad’s mechanical arms successfully caught the “Super Heavy” booster as it slowly descended back to the ground. SpaceX was hoping to catch the booster for the second time on Nov. 19 but with a faster descent to the launchpad.

Minutes after Starship’s Super Heavy booster detached from the rocket at an altitude of roughly 67 kilometers, or nearly 220,000 feet, a SpaceX representative said the conditions were not ideal for a launchpad return, or tower catch.

“As we said before, both the tower and the vehicle, as well as the operators on console have been actively evaluating the commit criteria for that return to the launch tower. And unfortunately, we did not have a pass on those commit criteria, so we are no go for tower catch,” the representative said.

“Development testing, by definition, is unpredictable, which we saw with Super Heavy splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico today, but that is exactly why we test.”

Starship’s booster features 33 Raptor engines and is 233 feet tall. Flight 6 liftoff thrust is roughly 7,500 tons, and its total weight is roughly 5,000 tons, Musk wrote in a post on social media platform X. By comparison, a fully loaded Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet is roughly 455 tons.

President-elect Donald Trump, who recently appointed Musk to co-lead the new Department of Government Efficiency, flew to Texas on Nov. 19 to watch the launch in person.

“I’m heading to the Great State of Texas to watch the launch of the largest object ever to be elevated, not only to Space, but simply by lifting off the ground,” Trump wrote in a post on X.

President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk (L) as he arrives to attend a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, on Nov. 19, 2024. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

The SpaceX Starship lifts off from Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on Nov. 19, 2024, for the Starship Flight 6 test. Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

Musk said he was “Honored to have President @realDonaldTrump at our Starship launch!” in a response post.

Starship is another development in SpaceX’s efforts to expand commercial space flight for the United States and NASA after the latter retired its Space Shuttle program more than a decade ago.

Both SpaceX and competitor Blue Origin, which was founded by Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos, are planning to send humans to the moon once again through NASA’s Artemis program before setting their sights on Mars.

NASA selected Starship for its Artemis III, which will land astronauts near the moon’s south pole and will launch no earlier than September 2026. NASA chose Blue Origin for Artemis V, which is not scheduled for a crew demo until 2029.

“Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts—including the first woman and first person of color—to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and to build the foundation for crewed missions to Mars. Together, the SLS rocket, Orion, Gateway, advanced spacesuits, and human landing systems are NASA’s foundation for deep space exploration,” the agency said in a statement.

Reuters contributed to this report.