Lower Half Recovery Fails, Upper Half Still Attempted! SpaceX's First Starship "Double Recovery" Test Falls Short on Booster

SpaceX's fifteenth Starship test flight saw its "double recovery" debut falter: the V3-class booster Booster 22 experienced an anomaly on its first flight, aborting the catch attempt and exploding on splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico; the Ship 42 continued its mission, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites, with plans to attempt the first-ever mechanical arm recovery of a Starship upper stage the following day. The booster failure dashed the milestone, but a successful ship recovery would still yield critical data for full reusability.