Elon Musk’s Starship booster captured in world first
Elon Musk’s Starship rocket has achieved a world first by successfully capturing part of itself upon its return to the launch pad.
During its fifth test flight, the lower half of the SpaceX vehicle maneuvered back to the launch tower, where it was ensnared by a large set of mechanical arms.
This milestone brings SpaceX closer to its goal of creating a fully reusable and quickly deployable rocket.
“Today is a day for the history books,” declared SpaceX engineers as the booster landed safely.
The likelihood of the Super Heavy booster being caught so cleanly on the first attempt seemed low.
Before the launch, the SpaceX team mentioned that they wouldn’t be surprised if the booster was instead directed to land in the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX has made remarkable progress in the past two test flights, especially considering that it was just eighteen months ago when its inaugural flight ended in an explosion shortly after launch.
The company contends that such failures are integral to its development strategy—launching early with the expectation of failure to gather as much data as possible and expedite system improvements compared to competitors.
The early stages of the fifth test mirrored the previous flight, with the Ship and booster separating approximately two minutes and 45 seconds after liftoff.
At this point, the booster began its return to the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas.
With just two minutes remaining until landing, it was still uncertain if the capture attempt would proceed as the team conducted final checks at the tower.
When the flight director gave the go-ahead, cheers went up from SpaceX employees at mission control.
The company had said that thousands of criteria had to be met for the attempt to be made.
As the Super Heavy booster re-entered the atmosphere as its raptor engines worked to slow it down from speeds over a few thousand miles per hour.
When it approached the landing tower, which stands 146m-high (480ft), it seemed to almost float, orange flames engulfed the booster and it deftly slotted into the giant mechanical arms.
The Ship part of the rocket, which is where equipment and crew will eventually be held for future missions, fired up its own engines after separating from the booster.
It was successfully landed in the Indian Ocean around forty minutes later.
“Ship landed precisely on target! Second of the two objectives achieved”, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote on X.
Not only was the Ship landed accurately but SpaceX also managed to preserve some of the vehicle’s hardware, which it had not expected.
Catching the booster rather than getting it to land on the launch pad reduces the need for complex hardware on the ground and will enable rapid redeployment of the vehicle in the future.
Elon Musk and SpaceX have grand designs that the rocket system will one day take humans to the Moon, and then on to Mars, making our species “multi-planetary”.
The US space agency, Nasa, will also be delighted the flight has gone to plan. It has paid the company $2.8bn (£2.14bn) to develop Starship into a lander capable of returning astronauts to the Moon’s surface by 2026.
In space terms that is not that far away so Elon Musk’s team were eager to get the rocket re-launched as soon as possible.
But the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) , the US government body that approves all flights, had previously said there would be no launch before November as it reviewed the company’s permits.
Since last month the agency and Elon Musk have been in a public spat after the FAA said it was seeking to fine his company, SpaceX, $633,000 for allegedly failing to follow its license conditions and not getting permits for previous flights.
Before issuing a license, the FAA reviews the impact of the flight, in particular the effect on the environment.
In response to the fine, Musk threatened to sue the agency and SpaceX put out a public blog post hitting back against “false reporting” that part of the rocket was polluting the environment.
Currently, the FAA only considers the impact on the immediate environment from rocket launches rather than the wider impacts of the emissions.
Dr Eloise Marais, professor of atmospheric chemistry and air quality at University College London, said the carbon emissions from rockets pale in comparison to other forms of transport but there are other planet-warming pollutants which are not being considered.
“The black carbon is one of the biggest concerns. The Starship rocket is using liquid methane. It’s a relatively new propellant, and we don’t have very good data of the amount of emissions that are coming from liquid methane,” she said.
Dr Marais said what makes black carbon from rockets so concerning is that they release it hundreds of miles higher into the atmosphere than planes, where it can last much longer.