Houston: Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to conduct its latest test flight of Starship—the world’s largest and most powerful rocket—on Friday, aiming to achieve an unprecedented mid-air "catch" of the upper-stage spacecraft after a full day in orbit.

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Successfully capturing the Starship spacecraft would represent a major breakthrough in the aerospace sector's decades-long quest for fully reusable rockets capable of slashing launch expenses and enabling frequent space travel.

"If successful, this will mark the first full recovery of an orbital launch system and a breakthrough moment in making Starship a reliable, rapidly reusable rocket," SpaceX said.

During Friday’s 15th test mission, the company plans to recover both stages of the towering 124-meter (407-foot) vehicle. While SpaceX has already recovered the Super Heavy first-stage booster three times by guiding it vertically back into the launch tower’s mechanical "chopstick" arms shortly after liftoff, it will now attempt the same recovery maneuver with the upper spaceship for the first time. Depending on the variant, the spacecraft is built either to deploy internet satellites and orbital data centers or to transport crews to the Moon and Mars.

Clayton Swope, an aerospace specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that achieving complete reusability remains the "Holy Grail" of spaceflight.

"No one's really been able to do that so far," he said. "People have been trying to do that since the (NASA) space shuttle. But the space shuttle ended up being kind of a compromise because a lot of the vehicle wasn't reusable."

To make the Starship upper stage genuinely reusable, engineers must ensure it can survive the intense heat of atmospheric reentry and turn around for subsequent flights without major repairs.

Refueling challenge

Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual, previously transformed commercial spaceflight with the partially reusable Falcon rocket family, which routinely delivers satellites to orbit and transports astronauts to the International Space Station.

In contrast, Starship has faced multi-year setbacks as engineers work through complex technical hurdles, even as NASA relies on the vehicle to act as a lunar lander for its Artemis Moon program. Among the remaining obstacles is mastering in-orbit propellant transfer, a critical step required for deep-space missions to the Moon and Mars.

Following SpaceX’s major stock market listing in June, the company conducted Starship’s inaugural orbital mission in September, though an engine malfunction forced an early end to that flight. Alongside testing, SpaceX is pouring substantial investment into building new Starship launch facilities in Florida and Louisiana.

Complex capture

Liftoff on Friday is targeted for 4:45 pm (2245 GMT) from SpaceX’s "Starbase" facility in southern Texas.

Roughly six and a half minutes after launch and mid-air stage separation, the Super Heavy booster is scheduled to return to the Gulf of Mexico coast and be caught at the launch pad. Meanwhile, the Starship upper stage will push into orbit to release 26 satellites for Starlink, Musk’s satellite broadband network that serves as a key revenue driver for the company.

After completing 14 orbits around Earth over 22 hours, the spacecraft will reenter the atmosphere and attempt to descend into the launch tower's chopstick arms. Pulling off this catch is significantly harder than recovering the booster, as the spaceship returns from a far higher altitude at much greater velocities.

SpaceX emphasized that the recovery attempts will only go ahead if flight conditions are ideal. Under Musk’s "fail fast" development philosophy—which treats explosions and crashes as rapid learning opportunities—the company has frequently adjusted flight profiles at the last minute. As of late Thursday, final clearance for the flight from the US Federal Aviation Administration was still pending. (AFP)