SpaceX decided not to catch Starship’s booster with the launch tower at Starbase on the rocket’s sixth test flight earlier this week as it lost communication with the launch tower computer, company CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday.
What Happened: “Lost comms to the launch tower computer. Catch would probably still have worked, but we weren’t sure, so erred on the side of caution,” Musk wrote on social media platform X.
The sixth test flight of the Starship launched from Starbase on Nov. 19.
The booster lifted off but instead of returning it to the launch site as planned to be captured by the launch tower, the company chose to splash it down in the Gulf of Mexico where it subsequently exploded.
“Automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt,” SpaceX said about the decision.
The Starship spacecraft went in to space after separation from the booster, reentered Earth, and splashed down in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX demonstrated its ability to catch the Starship booster back at the launch tower during its last flight test in October. The move is significant for the company’s vision of reusing the booster.
“We just passed 400 launches on Falcon (the company’s other launch vehicle), and I would not be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches in the next four years,” SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell said at the Baron Investment Conference in New York last week.
Future Flights: For the upcoming flight test, SpaceX will attempt to land the Starship spacecraft in the ocean yet again.
“We will do one more ocean landing of the ship. If that goes well, then SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower,” Musk said on Tuesday.
SpaceX is aiming to make the Starship wholly reusable by landing both stages of the rocket back at Starbase after a launch.
The company’s workhorse- the Falcon 9 rocket- is only partially reusable.
Why It Matters: Starship is SpaceX’s most ambitious launch vehicle.
NASA’s Artemis 3 mission slated to launch no earlier than September 2026 is expected to enable humans to land back on the surface of the moon with the help of the Starship human landing system. The last time humans set foot on the Moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
Musk, meanwhile, is eyeing taking humans to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars aboard the Starship. In September, he said that the first Starship launch to Mars is expected in 2026 and that it will not have a crew on board.
However, the Starship has yet to carry any payload to space.
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Photo courtesy: SpaceX
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