In a first, SpaceX 'catches' megarocket booster after test flight

SpaceX successfully "caught" the first-stage booster of its Starship megarocket Sunday as it returned to the launch pad after a test flight, a world first in the company's quest for rapid reusability.

The "super heavy booster" had blasted off attached to the uncrewed Starship rocket minutes earlier, then made a picture-perfect controlled return to the same pad in Texas, where a pair of huge mechanical "chopsticks" reached out from the launch tower to bring the slowly descending booster to a halt, according to a livestream from Elon Musk's SpaceX company.

Not long afterward, the upper stage of Starship splashed down, as planned, in the Indian Ocean, a development saluted by Musk on X.