Array
SpaceX on Sunday successfully flew the first-stage booster of its Starship megarocket back to the launch pad after a test flight, a technical tour de force that furthers the company’s quest for rapid reusability.
The “super heavy booster” had blasted off attached to the uncrewed Starship rocket minutes earlier, then made a picture-perfect controlled return to the same pad in Texas, where a pair of huge mechanical “chopsticks” reached out from the launch tower to bring the slowly descending booster to a halt, according to a livestream from Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
Not long afterward, the upper stage of Starship splashed down, as planned, in the Indian Ocean, a development saluted by Musk on X.
“Ship landed precisely on target!” he said of the vehicle’s fifth test flight. “Second of the two objectives achieved.”
SpaceX makes history: First spacewalks by private citizens
SpaceX’s historic encore: Astronauts arrive at space station
SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
The successful “catching” of the booster at its Texas launch pad had company staffers erupting in cheers.
“Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books,” a SpaceX spokesperson said on the company’s livestream.
Liftoff occurred at 7:25 am (1225 GMT) in clear weather from the SpaceX facility in southern Texas.
During its last flight in June, SpaceX achieved its first successful splashdown with Starship, a prototype spaceship that Musk hopes will one day carry humans to Mars.
