SpaceX catches Starship for first time, drawing praise in Washington

This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. End of dialog window. SpaceX’s Starship aircraft successfully touched back down at a South Texas launch site Saturday afternoon — marking a historic milestone in the aerospace giant’s effort to build reusable rockets. The 170-foot-long spacecraft launched from Starbase, Texas, on Friday for its 15th flight, the Elon Musk-headed company wrote in a Saturday release. Once it got into orbit, Starship deployed 26 of the company’s Starlink V3 satellites before returning to Earth, where it was caught for the first time in its launch tower, dubbed “Mechzilla.” Previously, SpaceX had successfully landed a portion of its smaller Falcon 9 rocket, but the upper stages of these launch models were discarded before reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. The successful landing marks the company’s first return of a Starship from orbit in a debut attempt at this feat. The company had aimed to also catch the bottom half of the rocket, in what is called a “double catch” maneuver, but the booster was diverted to a splashdown because of a detected guidance problem, according to SpaceX. Musk noted in a social media post that, while there was a “slight underperformance of engines” in Saturday’s attempt, the landing still marks a significant victory for the future of space travel. “These early ships and boosters are already outdated by improved designs in production or on the test stand, so this booster loss does not change our timeline to reach high volume, fully reusable Starship flights,” he added. Members and allies of the Trump administration celebrated the achievement in a barrage of social media posts Saturday. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called the feat “almost magic” in a post to social platform X. Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Exchange Commission, called the landing “amazing” in a separate post and congratulated Musk and the SpaceX team. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth similarly celebrated the tech mogul for being “a great American.” Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also commented on the landing, lauding the catch as a significant achievement. Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu (Calif.) wrote in a post responding to a video of the successful recapture, “Congratulations to SpaceX for making history with an amazing feat of engineering!” Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick (R) also commended Musk and his rocket company. “A vivid reminder that despite all our challenges, we live in the land of freedom and innovation, the best place in the world to dream impossible dreams,” he wrote. “We need to preserve and expand that culture of possibility, risk-taking, and creativity for all our citizens.” Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.