Engineers are still investigating the cause.Although Friday’s booster recovery failed, the company had already made three previous booster catches, validating the technique.NASA, which is paying billions of dollars for Starship to land Artemis astronauts on the Moon later this decade, welcomed the achievement.“It was almost magic,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said on X.Starship completed 14 laps around the Earth, 265km (165 miles), outshining the previous mission’s one to two laps.SpaceX reported that everything on the spacecraft, including its vital heat shield, appeared to work well.It was SpaceX’s 15th flight of a full-scale Starship since 2023 and its only second trip to orbit.Starship, a 124-metre (407ft) behemoth, is the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, intended for Moon and Mars travel.SpaceX expects to begin launching Starships from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center within the next few months.