SpaceX’s huge Starship rocket went on its riskiest test flight yet on Sunday. Mechanical arms were used to catch the booster as it came back to the launch pad.
Elon Musk was so happy that he called it “science fiction without the fiction part.”
The empty Starship took off at dawn from the southern tip of Texas, close to the border with Mexico. It was almost 400 feet tall. It flew over the Gulf of Mexico in a circle, just like the four Starships that came before it and were sunk, either soon after takeoff or while they were landing. The last one, which took off in June and didn’t explode, had been the most popular until Sunday’s demo.
Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, made things harder for the rocket he wants to use to send people back to the moon and then to Mars.
The flight director told the first-stage booster to fly back to the launch pad, where it had taken off seven minutes before. The huge metal arms on the launch tower, which people called “chopsticks,” grabbed the 232-foot stainless steel rocket as it fell and held on tight, hanging it high above the ground.
“The rocket was caught by the tower!” Musk said it through X. “Today, a big step was taken toward making life possible on Mars.”
Workers were so happy that they screamed, jumped, and pumped their hands in the air. NASA joined the party, and Administrator Bill Nelson sent his best wishes.
Nelson said that more tests of Starship will get the country ready for sending humans to the south pole of the moon. Apollo put 12 men on the moon more than 50 years ago. NASA’s new Artemis program is the follow-up to Apollo.
From SpaceX’s offices in Hawthorne, Calif., engineering manager Kate Tice said, “Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books.”
“What we just saw is magic, even in this day and age,” said Dan Huot, a spokesman for the company, who was near the launch and landing spot. “I’m shaking right now.”
They flight director had to use a hand control to decide in real time if they should try to land. SpaceX said that the booster and the launch tower had to be in good shape. If not, it would have ended up in the gulf like the others. It was decided that everything was ready to be caught.
The booster sent a spaceship that looked like it was from the 1970s around the world and more than 130 miles into the sky. It made a safe return in the Indian Ocean an hour after taking off, which was another accomplishment for the day. A nearby buoy had cameras that caught flames shooting up from the water as the spaceship hit the target spot and sank as planned.
Huot said, “What a day.” “Get ready for the next one.”
After bits came off, the June flight didn’t make it to the end. SpaceX made changes to the software and the heat shield to make the thermal tiles better.
SpaceX has been getting back the first-stage boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for nine years now, after sending people and satellites into orbit from Florida or California. They don’t land on their launch pads, though. Instead, they land on boats in the ocean or on concrete slabs miles away.
Reusing Falcon rockets has made launches faster and saved SpaceX a lot of money. Musk plans to do the same thing with Starship, which has 33 methane-fuel engines on its launch and is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever made to that point.
Musk said that the caught Starship booster looked to be in good shape, with only a little damage to some of the outer engines from the heat and wind. He said that was an easy thing to fix.
NASA has told two Starships to take people to the moon later this decade. SpaceX wants to send people and things to the moon and then, finally, Mars with Starship.
