SpaceX successfully conducted its fifth test flight of the Starship rocket on Sunday, achieving a significant milestone by catching the rocket’s over 20-story tall booster, marking progress towards a fully reusable rocket system.
The launch took place at 8:25 a.m. ET from SpaceX’s Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas. The Super Heavy booster made a successful landing on the company’s launch tower approximately seven minutes after liftoff.
Dan Huot, SpaceX’s communications manager, expressed his excitement during the company’s webcast, stating, “What we just saw, that looked like magic.”
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson praised the effort on social media, noting that ongoing tests will benefit future missions, particularly as NASA aims to return to the Moon under its Artemis program.
During the flight, Starship separated and completed a journey halfway around the globe before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as planned. This test flight did not carry any crew, as SpaceX anticipates conducting numerous missions before flying astronauts.
Previously, the Starship system had four spaceflight tests, with incremental progress achieved in each. SpaceX adopts a learning approach to enhance the performance of the massive rocket with every flight.
Designed for complete reusability, the Starship system aims to revolutionize cargo and passenger flights beyond Earth and plays a crucial role in NASA’s lunar exploration strategy. SpaceX secured a multi-billion-dollar contract to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA’s Artemis initiative.
Just ahead of the launch, the Federal Aviation Administration granted SpaceX a license, allowing the company to launch sooner than expected. However, SpaceX and Elon Musk critiqued the FAA for delays attributed to what they termed “superfluous environmental analysis.”
In the lead-up to the flight, SpaceX encountered regulatory challenges, including fines related to unauthorized water discharges from its Texas launch site.
With this latest launch, SpaceX exceeded the accomplishments of the previous flight by successfully returning the booster to the launch site, utilizing a unique “chopstick” mechanism designed for this purpose. The ambitious catching method is seen as vital for achieving full reusability of the rocket.
SpaceX highlighted the extensive preparation undertaken for the booster catch attempt, involving years of engineering and months of testing. Achieving a successful catch required meeting thousands of criteria to avoid a fallback splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship, at 397 feet tall when fully stacked with the Super Heavy booster, is the tallest and most powerful rocket ever launched. The booster is equipped with 33 Raptor engines that generate a combined thrust of 16.7 million pounds. In contrast, NASA’s Space Launch System produces 8.8 million pounds of thrust.
The Starship itself stands 165 feet tall and is powered by six Raptor engines designed for both atmospheric and space flight. The rocket operates using liquid oxygen and liquid methane, necessitating over 10 million pounds of propellant for launch.