Elon Musk's SpaceX launched its seventh test flight of its Starship mega rocket from the company's Starbase site in South Texas and will once again attempt to catch the Super Heavy rocket booster back at the launch site.
Around six minutes after the launch, the company pulled off a repeat of last year's historic feat, managing to guide the booster back to the launch site and catch it mid-air with two extended mechanical arms, so-called "chopsticks," which are attached to the Mechazilla tower. This is SpaceX's second booster catch, a vital maneuver that the company plans to perfect and use on a regular basis.
However, despite this initial success, SpaceX said the Starship's upper stage didn't make it. Contact with the spacecraft had been lost some eight and a half minutes into the flight. "We are obviously bummed out about the ship," SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said. "We're gonna figure out exactly what happened, come back, fly the next one, get even farther," he added.