In an engineering feat, mechanical SpaceX arms catch Starship rocket booster back at the launch pad

SpaceX pulled off the boldest test flight yet of its enormous Starship rocket on Sunday, catching the returning booster back at the launch pad with mechanical arms.

A jubilant Elon Musk called it “science fiction without the fiction part.”

Towering almost 400 feet (121 meters), the empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. It arced over the Gulf of Mexico like the four Starships before it that ended up being destroyed, either soon after liftoff or while ditching into the sea. The previous one in June had been the most successful until Sunday's demo, completing its flight without exploding.

This time, Musk, SpaceX's CEO and founder, upped the challenge for the rocket that he plans to use to send people back to the moon and on to Mars.

At the flight director's command, the first-stage booster flew back to the launch pad where it had blasted off seven minutes earlier. The launch tower's monstrous metal arms, dubbed chopsticks, caught the descending 232-foot (71-meter) stainless steel booster and gripped it tightly, dangling it well above the ground.

“The tower has caught the rocket!!” Musk announced via X. “Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today.”

Company employees screamed in joy, jumping and pumping their fists into the air. NASA joined in the celebration, with Administrator Bill Nelson sending congratulations.

Continued testing of Starship will prepare the nation for landing astronauts at the moon’s south pole, Nelson noted. NASA’s new Artemis program is the follow-up to Apollo, which put 12 men on the moon more than a half-century ago.

“Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books,” SpaceX engineering manager Kate Tice said from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

“Even in this day and age, what we just saw is magic,” added company spokesman Dan Huot from near the launch and landing site. “I am shaking right now.”

It was up to the flight director to decide, in real time with a manual control, whether to attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in good, stable condition. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the gulf like the previous ones. Everything was judged to be ready for the catch.

The retro-looking spacecraft launched by the booster continued around the world, soaring more than 130 miles (212 kilometers) high. An hour after liftoff, it made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean, adding to the day's achievement. Cameras on a nearby buoy showed flames shooting up from the water as the spacecraft impacted precisely at the targeted spot and sank, as planned.

“What a day,” Huot said. “Let's get ready for the next one.”

The June flight came up short at the end after pieces came off. SpaceX upgraded the software and reworked the heat shield, improving the thermal tiles.

SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for nine years, after delivering satellites and crews to orbit from Florida or California. But they land on floating ocean platforms or on concrete slabs several miles from their launch pads — not on them.

Recycling Falcon boosters has sped up the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same for Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built with 33 methane-fuel engines on the booster alone.

Musk said the captured Starship booster looked to be in good shape, with just a little warping of some of the outer engines from all the heat and aerodynamic forces. That can be fixed easily, he noted.

NASA has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use Starship to send people and supplies to the moon and, eventually Mars.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega rocket booster returning to the launch pad to be captured during a test flight Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (SpaceX via AP)

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega rocket booster returning to the launch pad to be captured during a test flight Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (SpaceX via AP)

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega rocket booster returning to the launch pad to be captured during a test flight Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (SpaceX via AP)

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega Starship rocket, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, over Boca Chica, Texas. (SpaceX via AP)

This image provided by SpaceX shows smoke and fire from SpaceX's mega Starship rocket after landing in the water in the Indian Ocean after returning during a test flight, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega Starship rocket seconds before landing in the water in the Indian Ocean after returning during a test flight, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega Starship rocket returning during a test flight, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, over Boca Chica, Texas. (SpaceX via AP)

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega Starship rocket upon its return during a test flight, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, over Boca Chica, Texas. (SpaceX via AP)

The sun sets behind SpaceX's mega rocket Starship, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Noah Jansko watches as the sun sets behind SpaceX's mega rocket Starship, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A Tesla Cybertruck passes as the sun sets behind SpaceX's mega rocket Starship, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

This image provided by SpaceX shows SpaceX's mega Starship rocket, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, over Boca Chica, Texas. (SpaceX via AP)

The sun sets behind SpaceX's mega rocket Starship, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

The moon rises over SpaceX's mega rocket Starship as it is prepares for a test launch Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

SpaceX's mega rocket booster returns to the launch pad to be captured during a test flight Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Boca Chica,, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

SpaceX's mega rocket booster returns to the launch pad to be captured during a test flight Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Boca Chica,, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

People take photos as the sun sets behind SpaceX's mega rocket Starship, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in Boca Chica, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

SpaceX's mega rocket Starship lifts off from Starbase for a test flight Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024, in Boca Chica,, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States will send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery to Israel, along with the troops needed to operate it, the Pentagon said Sunday, even as Iran warned Washington to keep American military forces out of Israel.

Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin authorized the deployment of the THAAD battery at the direction of President Joe Biden. He said the system will help bolster Israel's air defenses following Iran’s ballistic missile attacks on Israel in April and October.

The delivery of the sophisticated missile defense system risks further inflaming the conflict in the Middle East despite widespread diplomatic efforts to avoid an all-out war. The Iranian warning came in a post on the social platform X long associated with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who noted the earlier reports that the U.S. was considering the deployment.

Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon have been clashing since Oct. 8, 2023, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets over the border in support of its ally Hamas in Gaza. Late last month, Israel launched a ground invasion into Lebanon.

Israel is widely believed to be preparing a military response to Iran’s Oct. 1 attack when it fired roughly 180 missiles into Israel.

In a brief exchange with reporters before leaving Florida on Sunday, Biden said he agreed to deploy the THAAD battery “to defend Israel.” Biden spoke at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa after making a quick visit to to see the damage caused by Hurricane Milton and meet with first responders, residents and local leaders.

Ryder, in his statement, said the deployment "underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to defend Americans in Israel, from any further ballistic missile attacks by Iran.”

It was not immediately clear where the THAAD battery was coming from or when it will arrive. Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli army spokesman, declined to provide any timeline for its arrival, but thanked the U.S. for its support.

The U.S. deployed one of the batteries to the Middle East along with additional Patriot battalions to bolster protections for U.S. forces in the region late last year after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas militants. Ryder also said that the U.S. sent a THAAD battery to Israel in 2019 for training.

It also is not unusual for the U.S. to have a limited number of troops in Israel, which the U.S. considers a key regional ally. There generally has been a small number of forces there consistently as well as routine rotational deployments for training and exercises.

According to an April report by the Congressional Research Service, the Army has seven THAAD batteries. Generally each consists of six truck-mounted launchers, 48 interceptors, radio and radar equipment and requires 95 soldiers to operate.

The THAAD is considered a complementary system to the Patriot, but it can defend a wider area. It can hit targets at ranges of 150 to 200 kilometers (93 to 124 miles).

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Aamer Madhani in Tampa, Florida, contributed to this report.

FILE - A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile defense system is displayed during a Made in America showcase on the South Lawn of the White House, July 15, 2019, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)