SpaceX launched its fifth experimental flight of the Starship spacecraft from the state of Texas, United States, successfully recovering the booster of the first stage of the giant rocket for the first time.
The Super Heavy booster launched at 12:25 GMT from the launch pad in Boca Chica, to place the second stage Starship rocket on its path towards space, heading towards the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia, where the spacecraft will attempt a water landing after reentering the atmosphere.
After separating from the Starship at an altitude of about 74 kilometers, the Super Heavy returned to the same area it launched from to attempt the landing. Three of its 33 Raptor engines were reignited to slow its speed during descent, targeting the launch tower it departed from.
With the roar of its engines, the 71-meter tall Super Heavy fell between the launch tower arms, stabilizing itself in position with four grid fins used for guidance during flight. Minutes later, Elon Musk expressed his joy through the SpaceX platform, writing “The tower caught the rocket.”
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration had approved SpaceX’s launch license for testing the Starship spacecraft after weeks of tension between the company and its regulatory body over launch approvals and fines associated with the Falcon 9 rocket.
Despite achieving this milestone, SpaceX still faces significant challenges before being able to transport people and cargo, which is crucial for Musk’s ambitions of sending humans to the moon and Mars.
Recovering the Starship rocket booster after launch is a major milestone for the company, as it had promised that the spacecraft would be fully reusable. While SpaceX recovers Falcon 9 rockets after launch, these vehicles are only partially reusable, with some parts becoming unusable again.
SpaceX’s ultimate goal is to recover the two main components of the spacecraft, the Starship vehicle that will accommodate satellites and passengers, and the Super Heavy booster that launches the Starship into space. By recovering both of these components after each trip, SpaceX hopes to rapidly reuse the devices and launch them again, allowing for multiple flights in a single day.
The company expects that full reusability will significantly reduce the launch costs of the Starship. Similar to Falcon 9, the Super Heavy booster returned to Earth using fins that helped guide it through the atmosphere, before reigniting its engines to control its descent.
However, unlike Falcon 9, which uses landing legs to stabilize on the ground, the Super Heavy is designed to be caught before touching the ground directly. As it approached the launch pad, two giant arms connected to the tower emerged to catch the vehicle, marking the first time SpaceX has executed this process.
In the previous Starship flight in June, the company attempted to land the Super Heavy at a specific target in the Gulf of Mexico, with the booster approaching its target with half a centimeter accuracy.
The current Starship mission is expected to closely mirror its previous journey, with SpaceX attempting to launch the Starship and Super Heavy together, allowing the Starship to reach near orbital speeds. The spacecraft is expected to orbit the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and landing in the Indian Ocean.
During a previous flight, the spacecraft successfully landed but started to disintegrate during descent, leading to it burning up before reaching the ocean.
SpaceX announced afterwards that it had completely redesigned the heat shield on the spacecraft for this trip, to withstand the intense heat during descent. With each test flight, SpaceX emphasizes that it does not consider the loss of spacecraft as a failure, but seeks to improve performance with each new flight. So far, the company has made significant progress with each new launch.
