On Sunday, SpaceX launched its enormous Starship rocket on its boldest test flight yet, catching the returning booster on its way back with mechanical arms.
The empty Starship, which towers nearly 121 meters (400 feet), blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. It arced over the Gulf of Mexico, like the four starships before it that were eventually destroyed, either shortly after liftoff or while tossing in the sea. The last one, in June, was the most successful yet, completed its flight without exploding.
This time the SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Muskincreased the challenge and risk. The company brought the first-stage booster back to land at the road from which it had blasted off seven minutes earlier. The launch tower had monstrous metal arms, called chopsticks, which caught the descending 71 meter booster.
“Are you kidding me?” SpaceX’s Dan Huot excitedly observed from near the launch site. “I’m shaking right now.”
“This is a day for the engineering history books,” added SpaceX’s Kate Tice from its headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
It was up to the flight director to decide in real time with a manual control if he wanted to attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in good, stable condition. Otherwise it would end up in the Gulf of Mexico like the previous ones. Everything was judged to be ready for the catch.
Once free of the booster, the retro-looking stainless steel spacecraft continued atop the globe and aimed for a controlled plunge into the Indian Ocean. The June flight fell short at the end after pieces of it came off. SpaceX upgraded the software and reworked the heat shield, improving the thermal tiles.
SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters from its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for nine years, after delivering satellites and crews to orbit from Florida or California. But they land on floating ocean platforms or on concrete slabs several kilometers from their launch pads – not on them.
The recovery of Falcon boosters accelerated the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same for the Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, with 33 methane-fueled engines on the booster alone. Nasa has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use the Starship to send people and supplies to the moon and eventually Mars.
