SpaceX's Starship enters Earth's orbit, but booster catch aborted

Successful recoveries of both Starship and its booster 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.

SpaceX's Starship Flight 15 launches from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas on Nov 13, 2026. (Photo: AFP/Ricardo Arduengo)

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WASHINGTON: An unspecified problem forced Elon Musk's SpaceX on Friday (Nov 13) to abort the recovery of the booster for the world's biggest and most powerful rocket, the Starship, but the company hoped it could yet pull off a first-ever "catch" of the spaceship.

The 124m Starship roared into the sky from Starbase in southern Texas for its 15th test flight, but minutes later, the landmark nature of the mission went awry.

After lift-off and the mid-air separation of the two stages, an issue with the Super Heavy booster forced SpaceX to divert it to an "offshore splashdown" - scuttling what would have been a groundbreaking twin capture of both components of the rocket.

A fireball erupted as the booster fell into the Gulf of Mexico near the launch site, with a section sticking out vertically afterward.

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