SpaceX launched its massive Starship rocket on Sunday in its boldest test flight yet, trapping the returning booster on the pad with mechanical arms.
Standing nearly 400 feet (121 meters) tall, the empty Starship took off at dawn from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It arced over the Gulf of Mexico, like the four previous Starships that ended up being destroyed, either shortly after takeoff or while plunging into the sea. The last one, in June, was the most successful yet and completed its flight without exploding.
This time, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk upped the challenge and risk. The company brought the first stage booster to land on the pad from which it had taken off seven minutes earlier. The launch tower sported monstrous metal arms, called sticks, that caught the descending 71-meter booster.
“Are you kidding me?” SpaceX's Dan Huot watched enthusiastically from near the launch site. “I’m shaking right now.”
“This is a day for the engineering history books,” SpaceX's Kate Tice added from its headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
It was up to the flight director to decide, in current time with a management handbook, whether to attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower must be in good and stable condition. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the Gulf of Mexico like the previous ones. Everything was considered ready for capture.
Once free of the propellant, the retro-looking stainless steel spacecraft on top continued around the world, aiming for a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean. The June flight fell short after pieces fell off. SpaceX updated the software and modified the heat shield, improving the thermal plates.
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 concrete slabs several kilometers from their launch pads, not on them.
Recycling Falcon boosters has accelerated launch speed and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same with Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, with 33 methane fuel engines in the booster alone. NASA has ordered two Starships to take astronauts to the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use Starship to send people and supplies to the Moon and, eventually, Mars.