SpaceX is celebrating after managing to catch the boosters of the most powerful rocket ever built, in a world first.
Unlike its four predecessors, whose returning boosters ended up being destroyed, either soon after lift-off or while ditching into the sea, this time it landed safely.
The 232-ft booster, known as ‘Super Heavy’, was caught by huge metal arms on the launch tower dubbed chopsticks.
It is a feat of engineering which some thought might never be possible, and is a huge success for Elon Musk’s company which he hopes will one day send humans to Mars.
‘Are you kidding me?’ SpaceX’s Dan Huot observed with excitement from near the launch site. ‘I am shaking right now.’
The 400 ft empty spaceship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border.
‘This is a day for the engineering history books,’ added SpaceX’s Kate Tice from SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
The rocket itself had a successful controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Today’s test launch is a big success for the company, after some more difficult launches previously, including one when the rocket blew up (although this was intentional after controllers hit the self destruct button).
SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in a good, stable condition to even attempt catching the booster today.
It wants to develop the tech to do this in order to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable, if boosters can be reused.
A flight in June came up short at the end after pieces came off. SpaceX upgraded the software and reworked the heat shield, improving the thermal tiles.
SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters of 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 on concrete slabs several miles from their launch pads – not on them – and Starship is a much bigger spacecraft, with 33 methane-fuel engines on the booster alone.
Recycling Falcon boosters has sped up the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions.
Nasa has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade.
SpaceX intends to use the rocket to send people and supplies to the moon and, eventually, Mars.
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