埃隆·马斯克旗下的SpaceX公司于11月14日周六实现了首次飞船回收，在“星舰”飞船绕地球飞行一天后返回发射场时，成功完成了“捕获”操作。飞船从多云的天空中显现出来，经受住了再入地球大气层时的极端高温，在“星港”基地上空缓缓下降，随后平稳滑入发射台2号上方机械“筷子臂”的夹持范围内。
Elon Musk's SpaceX on Saturday, November 14, carried out the first-ever recovery of a spaceship, pulling off a successful "catch" of its Starship vessel as it returned to its launch site after a day in orbit. The spaceship emerged from a cloudy sky after withstanding the extreme heat of re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, and descended slowly over Starbase before slipping smoothly between mechanical "chopstick arms" above Launch Pad 2.
这一壮举标志着航天工业几十年来对完全可复用火箭系统追求的一个里程碑——这一目标能够大幅降低任务成本，并使更频繁的发射成为可能。
The feat marked a milestone in the space industry's decades-long pursuit of fully reusable rocket systems – a goal that can drastically reduce mission costs and make more frequent launches possible.
“这是航天飞行的圣杯，穿越火海后被钢铁从空中抓住。我们捕获了一艘‘星舰’，现在一切都变了，”SpaceX发言人丹·休特说。
"That was the Holy Grail of space flight, plummeting through fire to be snatched out of the air by steel. We caught a Starship and now, everything changes," SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said.
聚集在“星港”基地附近墨西哥湾海滩上的民众爆发出欢呼声，看着飞船缓缓落入其高科技“巢穴”。这是全球最大、最强大火箭系统的第15次试飞。此次搭载“星舰”飞船（该火箭系统以此命名）绕地球飞行了14圈，在22小时的旅程中为马斯克的“星链”卫星互联网星座部署了26颗卫星。“巨大的呼啸声”直到现在，SpaceX已成功回收返回的助推火箭三次。然而，“星舰”飞船的“捕获”极其复杂，因为飞船下落速度比助推火箭快得多，且返回高度高得多。工程师们精心规划了飞船的归航路径。
Crowds gathered on the Gulf of Mexico beach near Starbase broke into cheers as the spaceship eased into its high-tech nest on the 15th test flight of the world's biggest and most powerful rocket system. This time the Starship spacecraft that gives the rocket system its name orbited Earth 14 times and deployed 26 satellites for Musk's Starlink satellite internet constellation during its 22-hour journey.
“如果你想回到得克萨斯州东海岸，就必须飞越整个大陆才能到达那里。因此，不可避免地要飞越陆地，我们花费大量时间来寻找最安全的方式，”SpaceX高级工程师拉尔斯·布莱克莫尔说。
'Giant swoosh'
星舰飞越人口稀少的沙漠地区，穿行于城镇上空，随后在最后进近阶段实施了一次“巨大的俯冲机动”，绕行得克萨斯州里奥格兰德河谷的城市，从东侧接近着陆场。部分型号的星舰设计用于将互联网卫星和数据中心送入轨道，而其他迭代版本则将用于运送人员前往月球和火星。
Until now SpaceX had captured returning booster rockets three times. However, the "catch" of Starship was extraordinarily complex because the spaceship fell much faster and from a much higher altitude than boosters do. The vessel's path home was carefully mapped out by engineers.
美国国家航空航天局（NASA）期望星舰在其“阿耳忒弥斯”任务中担任月球着陆器。周六，NASA局长贾里德·艾萨克曼向马斯克和SpaceX表示祝贺。
"If you want to get back to the east coast of Texas, you have to fly over the entire continent to get back there. So inevitably, you're flying over land and we spend a lot of time figuring out the safest way to do that," senior SpaceX engineer Lars Blackmore said.
“简直像魔法一样……每天都在创造更多的信徒……离（月球）更近了一步，”他在社交媒体平台X上写道。
Starship flew over sparsely inhabited desert areas, wove over towns and then carried out a "giant swoosh maneuver" in its final approach, looping around the cities of Texas' Rio Grande Valley and approaching its landing site from the east. Some versions of Starship are designed to launch internet satellites and data centers into orbit, while other iterations will be made to ferry people to the Moon and Mars.
加注挑战 马斯克是世界首富，他凭借部分可复用的“猎鹰”火箭已经彻底改变了航天领域，这些火箭定期发射卫星并将宇航员送往国际空间站。但星舰项目因SpaceX面临新颖的工程挑战而遭遇延误，其中包括在轨向飞船输送燃料这一尚未解决的问题——这是前往月球或火星任务的必要条件。
US space agency NASA is expecting Starship to serve as a lunar lander on its Artemis mission. On Saturday, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated Musk and SpaceX.
星舰还需要进一步微调“超重型”助推器，该助推器周五在下降过程中遇到技术问题，被迫改道至发射场附近的墨西哥湾。它原本也应被“筷子臂”捕获。助推器在撞击水面前自动自毁——助推器喷发出一团火球。
"It was almost magic... Making more believers by the day... one step closer to (the Moon)," he said on Refueling challenge Musk, the world's richest person, has already revolutionized the space sector with the partially reusable Falcon rockets, which regularly launch satellites and carry astronauts to the International Space Station. But the Starship project has been plagued by delays as SpaceX grapples with novel engineering challenges, including the unsolved problem of transferring fuel to the spaceship while in orbit – a requirement for any journey to the Moon or Mars.
继SpaceX于6月高调在股市上市并筹集约857亿美元后，该公司正在大力投资生产和发射能力。SpaceX官员周五在对位于“星港”的百万平方英尺（9.3万平方米）工厂进行参观时告诉记者，公司现已具备每两周生产一艘飞船、每四周生产一级助推器的能力。
It will also need to further fine-tune the Super Heavy booster, which ran into a technical issue Friday on its descent, forcing a diversion to the Gulf of Mexico just off the launch site. It, too, was supposed to have been caught by the "chopstick arms." The booster automatically self-destructed – a fireball erupting from the booster – before hitting the water. Following SpaceX's high-profile stock market debut in June that raised about $85.7 billion, the company is investing heavily in production and launch capabilities. During a tour of its million-square-foot (93,000-square-meter) factory at Starbase on Friday, SpaceX officials told journalists it now has the capability to produce a spaceship every two weeks and a booster every four weeks.