In the presence of Trump and Musk, SpaceX cancels the attempt to pick up the Starship vehicle during its descent to Earth

SpaceX canceled an expected capture attempt of the Starship spacecraft on Tuesday, during the sixth test of the most powerful rocket ever built, in the presence of both US President-elect Donald Trump and the company's CEO, Elon Musk, in another example of Musk's increasing role in Trump's orbit. SpaceX said in a statement on Tuesday that “automated checks of important devices at launch and the capture tower led this time to cancel the capture attempt.”

The vehicle then executed a pre-planned diversion maneuver, resulting in a soft landing on the water and splashing into soft water into the Gulf of Mexico.

This attempt witnessed a major achievement apart from the capture attempt, as this was the first time that the “Starship” vehicle, a vehicle aimed at transporting humans to the moon and Mars, succeeded in successfully igniting one of the “Raptor” engines while it was in space, according to SpaceX. It is noteworthy that the goal of these test flights is to find out how SpaceX can one day relaunch Starship spacecraft to carry out future missions, while reusing parts of the rocket is considered essential to significantly reduce the time and cost of transporting goods or people to space.