SpaceX is aiming to attempt its first Starship tower catch in the coming months as the company accelerates efforts toward full vehicle reusability.
The update came directly from SpaceX CEO Elon Musk on X, where he expressed confidence in the system’s progress during recent splashdown tests. “Looks like we will probably catch the ship with the tower in a few months,” Musk said. He noted that during prior ocean tests, the vehicle achieved high precision, adding, “If there had been a tower out to sea where we practiced landing the ship, it would have been caught.”
Following a successful catch, SpaceX plans to quickly turn its attention to reusing an upper stage in flight. Musk revealed that the “first reflight of the ship will be either end of this year or early next.”
Reflying a Starship upper stage would mark a major milestone for SpaceX, which already regularly reuses Falcon 9 boosters and Dragon capsules. However, Starship represents a far more ambitious leap due to its sheer scale and the extreme heating conditions it experiences upon atmospheric reentry. Reusing both the Super Heavy booster and the upper Starship stage is considered essential for drastically lowering launch costs and achieving high-frequency spaceflight.
Highlighting the significance of the upcoming attempt, Musk framed the effort in cosmic terms, calling the milestone “a fork in the road of history for consciousness reaching the stars.”
Despite the optimistic timeline, the engineering effort remains incredibly demanding. Musk previously acknowledged the intense difficulty of mastering full reusability for the massive spacecraft, admitting, “This absorbs more of my mental energy than probably any other single thing. But it is so preposterously difficult that there are times where I wonder whether we can actually do this.”
SpaceX continues to iterate on both the Starship vehicle design and the “chopstick” catch mechanism on the Launch Mech Tower at Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, ahead of the planned attempt.
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