The rocket was successfully picked up by giant robotic arms mounted on the launch pad, after five previous attempts at flights.
SpaceX made its boldest test flight of the massive Starship rocket on Sunday, catching the booster returning to the launch pad with mechanical arms.
With a height of almost 71 meters, as well as 50 Starships, o Too heavy it took off early this morning from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It passed over the Gulf of Mexico, as did the four rockets that preceded it and were eventually destroyed, either immediately after takeoff or when they fell into the sea. The last launch, in June, was the most successful, completing the flight without an explosion.
This time, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk stepped up to the challenge and the risk. The company brought the first stage drive back to land on the platform where it had left seven minutes earlier. The launch tower had monstrous metallic arms, known as chopsticks, which caught the booster as it descended 71 metres.
“The tower caught the rocket!!!” said Musk via X.
The company’s employees expressed great joy as the rocket slowly descended into the arms of the launch tower.
“Even today, what we saw is just magic,” noted Dan Huot SpaceX near the launch site. “I’m shaking right now.”
“Guys, this is a day for the engineering history books,” added SpaceX’s Kate Tice from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
It was up to the flight director to decide, in real time and with manual control, whether the landing should be attempted. SpaceX said the booster and launch tower must be in good, stable condition. Otherwise, it would end up in the Gulf, like the previous ones. Everything was considered ready for capture.
The backward-looking stainless steel spacecraft continued to circle the earth when it broke free from the booster, aiming to make a controlled dive into the Indian Ocean, where it would become stuck until safe. The flight was expected to last a little over an hour.
The June flight ultimately fell short, after parts fell out. SpaceX updated the software and redesigned the heat shield, improving the thermal plates.
SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage thrusters for its smaller Falcon 9 rocket for nine years, after sending satellites and crews into orbit from Florida or California. But they land on floating ocean platforms or concrete slabs several kilometers from their launch pads – not on them.
Recycled Falcon boosters have accelerated the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same with Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, with 33 methane engines in the propellant alone.
NASA has ordered two starships to land astronauts on the Moon later this decade. SpaceX plans to use Starship to send people and supplies to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars.