# SpaceX Catches Starship Upper Stage at Texas Tower for First Time

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/57548
Published: 2026-11-14T22:40:08.000Z
Updated: 2026-11-14T22:40:08.000Z
Section: Technology

> Starship spent about 22 hours in orbit and circled Earth 14 times. Its Super Heavy booster was diverted to the Gulf of Mexico and exploded after hitting the water.

SpaceX brought its Starship upper stage back to the Starbase launch site and caught it with the tower’s arms for the first time, marking a milestone in reusable launch operations.

Starship returned to the South Texas site at about 4:20 p.m. ET Saturday (21:20 UTC), after roughly 22 hours in orbit and 14 circuits around Earth. The launch tower’s mechanical arms, called Mechazilla, secured the spacecraft during its landing maneuver.

The Super Heavy booster was not recovered. SpaceX redirected it from a planned return to the tower toward the Gulf of Mexico, where it hit the water and exploded.

Starship reached an orbit about 275 kilometers high and deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites roughly 42 minutes after liftoff. Three satellites carried cameras to inspect the spacecraft’s heat shield and send images back to Earth.

SpaceX had previously caught three Super Heavy boosters with the launch tower, and two flew again. The upper stage and booster have now each been caught in separate flights, but the company has yet to recover both during the same mission.