SpaceX Catches Starship for First Time, Loses Booster After 6 Minutes

SpaceX caught its Starship ship for the first time on Saturday. The booster was lost minutes after liftoff a day earlier. Flight 15 launched from Starbase, Texas, on Friday, November 13. Liftoff came at 4:47 p.m. Texas time.

The Super Heavy booster did not return to the launch tower. Its engines fired to turn the booster around, but the burn ended early. SpaceX said the burn stopped because of low fuel. This triggered an automatic abort of the catch attempt. The booster came down in the Gulf of Mexico instead. This happened about 6.5 minutes after liftoff.

The ship separated from the booster about 2.5 minutes into the flight. It then fired its own engines and reached orbit. The ship flew at about 275 kilometers above Earth. It deployed 26 Starlink satellites over 42 minutes. Three of the satellites carried cameras. These cameras checked the ship’s heat shield from space.