In a historic feat of aerospace engineering, SpaceX successfully caught its Starship’s booster using metal “chopsticks” at its Texas launch pad on Sunday. The booster’s return is a milestone for the company and the US’ broader space aspirations, which aims to use a reusable Starship to send people to the moon and Mars.
“Science fiction without the fiction part” is how SpaceX CEO Elon Musk described the milestone, which other SpaceX employees called “magic” and “a day for the engineering history books.”
Sunday’s launch was the fifth test flight for Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket in the world. It stands almost 400 feet tall (taller than the Statue of Liberty), consisting of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft stacked on top of one another.
The flight couldn’t have gone more smoothly:
- At an altitude of ~40 miles, the Super Heavy booster detached from Starship and began its descent to Earth, while Starship continued its voyage before making a controlled splash landing in the Indian Ocean.
- On its descent, the booster used four fins to steer itself right into the waiting arms of two “chopsticks,” which gave it a bearhug similar to the one you’d get from a friend after a long journey.
A one-take wonder: This was the first time SpaceX attempted to catch the booster back at the launch tower.
Why reusability matters
Before SpaceX came along, most rocket operators used expendable boosters that, like a bridesmaid dress, can only be used once. But Musk has long believed that reusable rockets are the future, since they dramatically lower costs and can theoretically be sent up to space again quickly after completing a mission.
Big picture: Starship is key to NASA’s ambitions, because it’s banking on using it to land humans on the moon for the first time since the 1970s. Musk has even grander plans for Starship: He wants the rocket to take humans to Mars, with potentially five uncrewed test flights to the red planet slotted for the next two years.—NF