---
title: "SpaceX Just Caught Its Starship Booster With Giant “Chopsticks” Arms"
description: "During the company's fifth Starship test flight, SpaceX successfully caught its Super Heavy booster using its \"Mechazilla\" tower."
date: "2024-10-13"
modified: "2024-10-13"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-caught-starship-booster-chopsticks-tower"
categories:
  - "Space"
  - "SpaceX"
  - "Starship"
tags:
  - "SpaceX"
  - "Starship"
  - "super heavy booster"
  - "the digest"
---

# SpaceX Just Caught Its Starship Booster With Giant “Chopsticks” Arms

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/spacex-caught-starship-booster-giant-chopsticks-armsspacex-caught-starship-booster-giant-chopsticks-arms.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: SpaceX\</em\>*

## First Catch

Elon Musk's space venture SpaceX has just pulled off the seemingly impossible.

During the company's fifth Starship test flight, SpaceX successfully caught the spacecraft's Super Heavy booster using its "[Mechazilla](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-installs-robot-chopsticks>)" tower, an unbelievable feat of engineering that required an immense amount of precision and experience.

It's the first time the company even attempted the maneuver, highlighting just how much progress the company has made since the first orbital test flight in April 2023.

And it was a picture-perfect landing, with the massive booster slowly adjusting its descent using its thrusters to gently be caught by the tower's "chopsticks" arms.

"Good, our first catch of the day!" a SpaceX staffer said during the company's livestream.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1845442658203734384

## Witness Me

It's a tremendous result, and not everybody thought it was possible.

"I admit I did not expect this to work," Harvard astronomer and space tracker Jonathan McDowell [tweeted](<https://x.com/planet4589/status/1845443055744156052>).

The booster measures a whopping 233 feet in height and weighs over 600,000 pounds without any propellant loaded.

The test marks a major step forward in the company's efforts to develop a fully reusable heavy-lift launch platform that could one day take astronauts to the Moon and, perhaps one day, to Mars.

**More on Starship:** *[NASA Is Mega Hyped About SpaceX's Imminent Starship Test Flight](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/nasa-hyped-spacex-starship-test>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)