SpaceX's Starship spacecraft returned to its launch site on Saturday and was successfully caught by the launch tower's giant mechanical arms for the first time, marking a major milestone in the company's efforts to develop a fully reusable rocket system.

The giant rocket lifted off from SpaceX's Starbase facility in the US state of Texas on Friday afternoon. After more than 22 hours in space, it returned to the launch site on Saturday, completing Starship's 15th flight test and its longest mission to date.

The Starship spacecraft performed its orbital insertion burn and entered Earth's orbit. It later deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites.

After emerging from thick clouds over the Texas coast, the spacecraft reignited three engines, flipped into a vertical position and slowed its descent toward the launch tower. The mechanical arms then successfully caught the spacecraft.

The mission had originally aimed to catch both the Starship spacecraft and its Super Heavy booster during the same flight. However, following a technical issue after stage separation, the booster was diverted from its planned return to the launch site and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico.

A major step toward full reusability

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket, collectively referred to as Starship, represent a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond.

Unlike SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, whose first stage is reusable but whose upper stage – the part that delivers payloads into orbit – is discarded after each flight, Starship is designed to be fully reusable, with both stages returning to the launch site to be caught after completing their flights.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk congratulated the team, posting videos of the spacecraft suspended between the mechanical arms and saying it "looks great."

US space agency NASA expects Starship to serve as a lunar lander for its Artemis mission. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman described the recovery as "almost magic" and "one step closer to (the moon)."

Clayton Swope, an aerospace expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called the mission a "huge technical achievement and proves the whole idea of Starship as a fully reusable spaceship can work."

Analyst Kathleen Curlee hailed the achievement but said more work remained to be done.

"What SpaceX needs is multiple repeated successes to prove the capability... to handle sensitive payloads and missions," said Curlee, of Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

More challenges ahead

Musk envisions Starship as the workhorse of "rapidly reusable" rockets, with a goal of hourly launches that could send things like internet satellites and data centers into space.

But SpaceX has yet to recover both stages of Starship in a single mission, and its heat shield, composed of black hexagonal tiles that protect it from the blazing heat of atmospheric reentry, is not yet fully reusable.

The company still has to solve the challenge of transferring fuel to the spacecraft in orbit, a requirement for future missions to the moon and Mars. It will also need to further fine-tune the Super Heavy booster, which encountered a technical issue during its descent on Friday.

(With input from agencies)