Starship Super Heavy booster caught by launch tower

On 13 October 2024, SpaceX's fifth integrated Starship test flight achieved what most aerospace engineers had considered impractical: a 70-metre-tall, 230-tonne orbital-class rocket booster flew back to its launch site and was caught in mid-air by the launch tower's two mechanical 'chopstick' arms — nicknamed 'Mechazilla' — just seven minutes after liftoff.

The Super Heavy booster performed a boostback burn to reverse direction, three separate engine burns to control its descent, and a precisely choreographed grid-fin and engine manoeuvre to position itself between the two catching arms at the Starbase facility in South Texas. The catch occurred at an altitude of roughly 65 metres above the launch pad.

The Ship (Starship's upper stage) continued to orbit before executing a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Indian Ocean approximately 65 minutes after launch — the second successful Ship splashdown. SpaceX engineers estimated that catching the booster rather than landing it on legs would save weeks of turnaround time per flight.

The catch dramatically validated the core premise of SpaceX's Starship architecture: that rapid, full reusability of an orbital-class vehicle is achievable in practice, not just in theory. If proven at scale, it could reduce the cost of lifting a kilogram to orbit by an order of magnitude over existing launch vehicles.