On Sunday, SpaceX conducted the fifth test flight of its Starship rocket, achieving a spectacular first-ever catch of the more than 20-story-tall booster.
The launch took place at 8:25 a.m. ET from the company’s Star-base facility near Brownsville, Texas.
The rocket’s “Super Heavy” booster made a dramatic return, landing on the arms of the launch tower in a groundbreaking recovery maneuver.
Starship separated and continued on to space, aiming to travel halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean.
he Federal Aviation Administration granted SpaceX a license on Saturday to conduct Starship’s fifth flight, earlier than the regulator had initially projected.
The fifth Starship flight is an uncrewed mission with no people on board.
SpaceX successfully achieved its objective of returning the booster to the launch site, using the tower’s “chopstick” arms to catch the vehicle. This bold recovery method is seen as essential to the company’s vision of making the rocket fully reusable.
or the past nine years, SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets following satellite launches and crewed missions from Florida or California. However, these boosters land on floating platforms at sea or concrete pads miles away from their launch sites—never directly back at the pad.
Reusing Falcon boosters has significantly accelerated launch frequency and saved the company millions. Musk aims to apply the same strategy to Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, featuring 33 methane-fueled engines on its booster.
NASA has already contracted two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX envisions using Starship not only for lunar missions but also for future crewed missions to Mars.
Sources:-
SpaceX, NBC News, TRT News, Al-Jazeera
