SpaceX caught its Starship spacecraft in giant mechanical arms for the first time Saturday, clearing another obstacle en route to Elon Musk’s vision of making crewed space launches as routine as air travel.
Critical to developing a fully reusable rocket, the landing marks the first time SpaceX was able to catch the spacecraft rather than just the booster on atmospheric re-entry.
In addition to lowering the cost of commercial space launches and providing satellite capabilities to Ukraine through Starlink, SpaceX is increasingly critical to US strategic competition in space, without which “NASA would still need Russia to carry astronauts to the ISS,” a Bloomberg columnist argued. “That’s something to keep in mind as legislators sharpen their knives.”
— Brendan Ruberry
