SpaceX has launched another Starship rocket, but passed up catching it with giant mechanical arms
SpaceX on Tuesday launched another Starship rocket, but passed up catching the booster with giant mechanical arms.
Unlike last month’s success, the booster was directed to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The catch was called off just four minutes into the test flight from Texas for unspecified reasons, and the booster hit the water three minutes later.
Not all of the criteria for a booster catch was met and so the flight director did not command the booster to return to the launch site, said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. He did not specify what went wrong.
At the same time, the empty spacecraft launched from Texas atop Starship soared across the Gulf of Mexico on a near loop around the world similar to October’s test flight. Skimming space, the shiny retro-looking craft descended into the Indian Ocean for a controlled but destructive end to the hourlong demo.
