Nearly 18 years after attempting its first rocket launch, Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Sunday caught the booster of its ambitious Starship launch vehicle back at Starbase with the arms of its launch tower several minutes after launch in a significant demonstration of the reusability of its design.
What Happened: On Starship’s fifth flight test on Sunday, it lifted off from Starbase, and the booster returned to Earth after propelling Starship to space. The booster was subsequently caught by the launch tower at Starbase.
The Starship, meanwhile, went on to space and splashed down on target in the Indian Ocean.
The recovery of the booster was a key objective of the flight test and demonstrates the reusability of the Starship’s design. SpaceX is aiming to make the Starship a completely reusable spacecraft that can fly multiple times, thereby reducing the cost of spaceflight.
SpaceX’s workhorse- the Falcon 9 launch vehicle- is partially reusable.
Musk on Sunday said that the recovered booster was inspected and no major issues were identified.
“A few outer engine nozzles are warped from heating & some other minor issues, but these are easily addressed,” Musk said. “Starship is designed to achieve reflight of its rocket booster ultimately within an hour after liftoff.”
From 2006 Till Today: SpaceX attempted its first launch of the Falcon 1 in 2006 which failed. It failed again in March 2007 and then again in August 2008. After three consecutive failures to launch, the team was low on cash but had a spare vehicle. The team worked on it and eventually, the first successful launch came in the second half of 2008— on Sept.28.
“If the fourth one had not succeeded, SpaceX would not exist. It was a very close call,” Musk previously said about the fourth launch attempt.
The company subsequently developed its Dragon spacecraft, its Falcon 9 rocket, and its Falcon Heavy rocket. The company took astronauts to the International Space Station for the first time in 2020, marking the first time a privately developed spacecraft took humans to orbit.
Since 2020, SpaceX has taken multiple all-civilian crews to space twice in addition to flying cargo and astronauts to space.
Starship is SpaceX’s most ambitious launch vehicle, aimed at taking humans to the Moon yet again and to Mars for the first time. Last month, Musk said that the first Starship launch to Mars is expected in 2026 and that it will not have a crew on board.
It is also the biggest rocket to be built so far, standing nearly 121 meters long, bigger than the Saturn V developed by NASA.
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Image generated using AI and official photos from SpaceX
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