A rocket launcher captured by giant robotic arms on this fifth test flight
On Sunday SpaceX made the most daring test flight yet of its massive Starship rocket, bringing the booster rocket back to the launch pad with mechanical arms.
The Super Heavy rocket’s first stage booster was fired at 15:25 (GMT) from SpaceX’s launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas, launching the second stage of the Starship rocket into space orbit, heading across the Indian Ocean to western Australia, with the aim is to enter the atmosphere and then land on a floating platform.
The Super Heavy rocket launcher, after separating from the Starship’s main thruster and at an altitude of 74 kilometers, returned to its launch site, making a landing attempt using two robotic arms attached to the launch tower.
Standing nearly 121 meters tall, the empty Starship was launched at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. It ended up over the Gulf of Mexico, just as the previous four starships had been destroyed, immediately after launch or when they were thrown into the sea. The last one in June was the most successful, completing its flight without exploding.
This time, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk stepped up to the challenge and the risk. The company brought the first-class starter back to land on the pad from which he had taken off seven minutes earlier. The launch tower contained monstrous metal arms, known as chopsticks, which took the launcher down from a height of 71 meters.
“The tower caught the missile!” Musk said through X.
The company’s workers were screaming with joy as the launcher slowly descended into the launch tower.
“Even today, what we’ve seen is just magical,” SpaceX’s Dan Huot observed from 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 with manual control, whether to proceed with the landing. SpaceX said the launcher and launch tower must be in good condition and stable. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the bay, just like the previous ones. Everything was considered ready for flight.
The backward-looking stainless steel spacecraft continued to circle the earth after it was released from the launcher, aiming for a controlled fall into the Indian Ocean, where it would safely submerge. The entire flight was expected to take a little over an hour.
The June flight was eventually completed after the pieces were detached. SpaceX upgraded the software and reworked the heat shield, improving the thermal tiles.
SpaceX has been getting the first stage thrusters for its smaller Falcon 9 rocket for nine years after delivering satellites and crews into orbit from Florida or California. But they land on floating sea platforms or concrete slabs several miles from the launch pads – not on them.
Recycled Falcon boosters have increased the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk plans to do the same for Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, with 33 methane-fueled engines in the launcher alone. NASA ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later in the decade. SpaceX plans to use Starship to send people and supplies to the moon and eventually to Mars.