SpaceX plans to catch Starship upper stage with 'chopsticks' in early 2025, Elon Musk says

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'Hopefully early next year, we will catch the ship too.'

a large silver rocket comes back to earth to land beside its launch tower, with the rising sun and the ocean in the background
Composite photo showing the Super Heavy booster of SpaceX's Starship megarocket coming in for a landing on the launch mount on Oct. 13, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX via X)

SpaceX doesn't plan to rest on its rocket-catching laurels.

The company made spaceflight history on Sunday (Oct. 13) during the fifth test flight of its Starship megarocket: About seven minutes after liftoff, the vehicle's first-stage booster, known as Super Heavy, came back to its launch mount, where it was caught by the "chopstick" arms of the launch tower.

And SpaceX aims to do the same with Starship's 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft — known as Starship, or simply Ship — in the coming months as well, according to company founder and CEO Elon Musk. "Hopefully early next year, we will catch the ship too," Musk said Tuesday (Oct. 15) in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

SpaceX is developing the 400-foot-tall (122 meters), fully reusable Starship to get people and cargo to the moon and Mars, and perform a variety of other spaceflight feats as well. Things are going well; the vehicle's most recent two test flights — on June 6 and this past Sunday — were complete successes, according to the company.

So it shouldn't be a big surprise that SpaceX plans to push the envelope, bringing Ship back safely on one or more upcoming test flights. (On recent missions, the upper stage has splashed down in the Indian Ocean.)

Related: Starship and Super Heavy explained

A view of SpaceX's Flight 5 Starship upper stage as it reenters Earth's atmosphere, with red glowing plasma around it. (Image credit: SpaceX)
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Launch-tower catches of Ship likely won't apply to all of the vehicle's missions, however. For example, the upper stage will carry people to the surface of the moon and Mars, if all goes according to plan — jaunts that will presumably require propulsive, vertical touchdowns made with the aid of landing legs.

But SpaceX also envisions launching many Starship missions to Earth orbit — for example, to continue building out its huge Starlink broadband megaconstellation, and to help refuel other Starships that are bound for distant realms. Launch-mount landings make sense for these craft, allowing them to fly to and from Earth orbit quickly and efficiently.   

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • skynr13
    I'd like to see Elon get on with those landing legs for the Starship and then make a vertical landing in the Southern Launch Koonibba Test Range in Australia soon!
    Reply
  • Rob77
    I understand why they want to use the chopsticks for Starship, but curious to know if anymore tests are in the works for the landing legs prior to this. So far they had one successful landing, thought they would attempt a few more for repeatability before moving to the next phase.
    It seems SpaceX is giving priority to commercializing Starships rapid re-use - rather than the moon / Mars missions at the moment.
    Reply
  • Torbjorn Larsson
    This and Axiom presenting a lunar excursion suit which is in pressure testing are nice pointers to an exciting future in space.

    Both business ends of Booster got glowing hot though, the hot staging ring was shown as it was dropping by the booster after release. Else the top end seems no worse for wear. Not so the foot end, which was too eroded (and outer ring engine nozzles warped) for another mission. Perhaps they will have to resort to an additional engine burn on the way down, or else improve the foot end design, whichever needs less mass.

    Rob77 said:
    It seems SpaceX is giving priority to commercializing Starships rapid re-use - rather than the moon / Mars missions at the moment.
    They need Booster reuse because it takes much more resources including time to build them.

    If, or rather when it looks like, they get that licked, the remaining basic functional tasks are Starship relight in orbit, refueling and Starship non-water landings (both legless for reuse such as in refueling tankers and legged for beyond Earth missions).


    The first item, relight, is needed for both refueling and for, yes, commercialization of cargo missions. I'm sure they will try to put up the larger Starlink design with, or right after, the first relight mission. It is dual use, and NASA won't deny them that.
    Reply