The 15th flight of Starship took off into space from Starbase in Texas on Friday, hoping to reach orbit, deploy satellites, and to achieve a historic first - a catch of Starship by the gigantic arms of Mechazilla on Saturday. 

Here was the liftoff of Starship. 

Then there was the hot-stage separation of Starship from the Super Heavy booster. 

The booster was supposed to come back to Starbase and be caught, but they changed plans and had it splash down offshore. 

Meanwhile, Starship was cleared to proceed into orbit around the Earth. 

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They also deployed 26 V3 Starlink satellites. 

The visuals are amazing. This was only the second time it's made it into orbit.

They were in orbit for about 21 hours, getting views like this of Africa. 

But then it was time to come home to "Baby Come Back." While the giant arms of Mechazilla had caught the booster before, this was the first time that they caught the Starship, so that was a historic achievement. It comes in faster than the booster, so it's harder to do, but they pulled it off on the first try, and it's a very big deal. 

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was clearly pleased as he inspected the ship he called "Ship 42" (as in the answer to everything in life is 42, per "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"). That "answer" that the catch now provided will be a huge boon to spaceflight. 

If they can catch it like this, it means they no longer need landing legs, so they can carry more cargo or fuel instead. It can then potentially be rapidly reused, potentially slashing the cost and increasing the frequency of spaceflight.  

UPDATED [6:36 PM ET]: The administrator of NASA released a congrats message for Musk and the whole team: