Musk's SpaceX 'chopsticks' catch rocket's flight booster

SpaceX has successfully launched and landed Starship, the spacecraft that Elon Musk's company hopes will allow it to carry humanity through the solar system.

- ANDREW GRIFFIN

In an astonishing success, SpaceX used mechanical arms it refers to as "chopsticks" to catch its booster on the launchpad with the hope of reusing it.

The main part of the spacecraft – which SpaceX also refers to as Starship, and which it hopes will one day carry humans – then travelled into orbit before coming back down to splash into the Indian Ocean. Starship is the most powerful rocket ever made. SpaceX and Mr Musk, its chief executive, hope that it will one day carry people to the moon and Mars.

Towering almost 400ft, 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 after ditching into the sea.