Elon Musk’s SpaceX misses Starship booster catch, says spacecraft remains ‘healthy’ before Texas return

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SpaceX's Super Heavy booster failed to reach its planned catch point during Starship's 15th test flight, but the spacecraft remained healthy.

SpaceX said its Starship spacecraft was "healthy" as it orbited the Earth and on track to return Saturday to its Texas launch site, where Elon Musk's company was planning to "catch" the vehicle for the first time.

It was the 15th test flight of the world's biggest and most powerful rocket system, originally meant to feature a groundbreaking twin capture of both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship.

Successful recoveries of both stages would have marked a milestone in the space industry's decades-long pursuit of fully reusable rocket systems that can drastically reduce mission costs and make frequent launches possible.

But that achievement slipped out of reach minutes after the 124-meter (407-foot) rocket blasted off Friday from its launch pad at Starbase.

After the mid-air separation of the two stages, the Super Heavy booster was descending when its guidance, navigation and control system aborted the capture attempt.

"The booster was not in the place that it was supposed to be to proceed with the catch," SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said, adding that engineers were still investigating the root cause.

Also read: SpaceX's Starship booster explodes, prevents spacecraft's double catch

Super Heavy, which SpaceX had caught three times previously, diverted to the Gulf of Mexico just off the launch site. It automatically self-destructed -- a fireball erupting from the booster -- before hitting the water.

The Starship spacecraft that gives the rocket system its name was, meanwhile, orbiting Earth, which it was expected to do 14 times before returning Saturday at the end of a 22-hour flight.

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