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SpaceX Captures Giant Starship Booster During Historic Flight 5 Rocket Launch and Landing (Video)

Vaseline October 13, 2024

The largest and most powerful rocket ever built has taken to the air again. And this time it came back.

SpaceX launched its 400-foot-tall (122-meter) spacecraft today (Oct. 13) for the fifth time ever, sending the giant rocket aloft from its starbase in South Texas at 8:25 a.m. EDT (1225 GMT).

The mission was intended to break new ground for Starship, and for spaceflight in general: SpaceX planned to return Starship’s massive booster, known as Super Heavy, straight to the launch pad and catch it with the “chopsticks” arms of the launch tower. in a daring and unprecedented maneuver. And that’s exactly what happened. About seven minutes after launch, SpaceX’s Super Heavy performed a landing that resembled a bull’s-eye, hovering near the Mechazilla launch tower as the tower captured it with its metal arms.

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Starship's Super Heavy Booster docks on the launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 13, 2024, during the Starship Flight 5 test. — Starship’s Super Heavy Booster docks on the launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 13, 2024, during the Starship Flight 5 test.(Image credit: Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is a day for the engineering history books,” Kate Tice, SpaceX manager of Quality Systems Engineering, said during live commentary as SpaceX employees shouted and cheered at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California behind her. “This is absolutely insane! On the very first try, we successfully captured the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower.”

“Are you kidding me!” SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot added from the launch site. “Even today, what we just saw looked like magic.”

The booster capture wasn’t the only goal for Flight 5. SpaceX also wanted to send Starship’s 160-foot-tall (50-meter) upper stage — known as Starship, or simply Ship — into space and return it to Earth with a splashdown in the air. the Indian Ocean. That happened about 65 minutes after takeoff, with the ship firing three of its six engines to hover above the ocean before tipping over and exploding.

“That was awesome,” Tice said. “We didn’t set out to get anything back from Starship, so that was the best ending we could have hoped for.”

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk agreed.

“Today a big step has been taken to make life multiplanetary,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) after landing.

A giant moon and Mars rocket

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SpaceX's Starship Flight 5 will launch on October 13, 2024 for a suborbital test flight from Starbase in South Texas. — SpaceX’s Starship Flight 5 rocket and booster take off from Starbase.(Image credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX is developing Starship to help humanity settle the moon and Mars, among other exploration feats. The vehicle is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable (as evidenced by the Super Heavy Launch Mount landing plan, which will reduce the time required between flights). This feature, combined with Starship’s unprecedented power, could revolutionize space travel, according to the company and its founder, Elon Musk.

Related: Starship and Super Heavy explained

NASA believes in the vehicle and has selected it as the first crewed lander for its Artemis lunar exploration program. If all goes according to plan, Starship will land NASA astronauts on Earth’s nearest neighbor for the first time during the Artemis 3 mission, expected to launch in September 2026.

SpaceX aims to get Starship operational in time to meet such deadlines through the usual development strategy: modify the vehicle and test those modifications on test flights, then repeat the process. Indeed, the Flight 5 Starship featured some significant changes compared to its predecessors.

“One of Starship’s major upgrades prior to the flight was a complete rework of the heat shield, with SpaceX engineers spending more than 12,000 hours replacing the entire thermal protection system with newer generation tiles, a backup ablative layer and extra protection between the flap structures,” SpaceX wrote in a Flight 5 mission description.

Starship’s previous four test flights took place in April and November 2023 and March and June of this year.

The rocket performed better with each successive flight. For example, the debut mission lasted just four minutes; SpaceX ordered an explosion high in the Texas skies after Starship’s two stages failed to separate. But Flight 4, which took off on June 6, was a great success; The ship achieved orbital velocity and both the ship and the Super Heavy survived their return to Earth, landing in the designated splashdown zones.

The waiting game

A giant SpaceX spaceship takes off as spectators watch from nearby boats in a bay

The SpaceX spacecraft will lift off from the starbase at Boca Chica, Texas, on October 13, 2024, for the Starship Flight 5 test. (Image credit: Sergio Flores/AFP via Getty Images)

If it were up to SpaceX, Flight 5 would probably have been on the books two months ago; the company said Starship was technically ready to go in early August.

However, launches require approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the agency needed more time before greenlighting this launch. In fact, last month the FAA said it did not expect approval for Flight 5 to come before the end of November.

The FAA explained its reasoning in an emailed statement to Space.com on September 11.

“SpaceX’s current license authorizing the launch of Starship Flight 4 also allows for multiple flights with the same vehicle configuration and mission profile. SpaceX chose to modify both for the proposed launch of Starship Flight 5, prompting a more in-depth review,” agency officials wrote. .

View of a SpaceX Flight 5 spaceship re-entering Earth's atmosphere, with red glowing plasma surrounding it.

A view of a SpaceX Flight 5 spaceship as it enters Earth’s atmosphere, with red glowing plasma surrounding it. (Image credit: SpaceX)

“In addition, SpaceX submitted new information in mid-August detailing how the environmental impact of Flight 5 will cover a larger area than previously assessed,” she added. “This requires the FAA to consult with other agencies.”

SpaceX was not happy with the news. On September 10, the company published a blog post titled “Starships Are Meant to Fly,” which claimed that the FAA had previously given SpaceX an estimate for approval of Flight 5 in mid-September. The document also expressed frustration with the pace and process of the FAA and on the regulation of the launch industry in general.

View of a SpaceX Flight 5 spaceship re-entering Earth's atmosphere, with red glowing plasma surrounding it.

This SpaceX video continues to show several images of the four flaps of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 5 spacecraft, with one of them (above left) showing signs of burnout during reentry, but not as severe as the one seen on Flight 4. (Image credit: SpaceX)

The Flight 5 delay “was not based on a new safety issue, but was instead caused by redundant environmental analysis,” SpaceX wrote in the post.

“We find ourselves experiencing delays due to unreasonable and infuriating reasons,” the company added. “Unfortunately, we remain stuck in a reality where it takes longer to do the government paperwork to license a rocket launch than it does to design and build the actual hardware,” the company added. “This should never happen and poses a direct threat to America’s position as a leader in space travel.”

On the left, a SpaceX spaceship wing glows red as it reenters. On the right a fireball in the night after landing.

On the left, a SpaceX spaceship wing glows red as it reenters. On the right a fireball in the night after landing. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Ultimately, the late November estimate for Flight 5 turned out to be pessimistic.

And it’s safe to assume that SpaceX wants to launch another Starship mission relatively soon. Last month, SpaceX conducted a static fire — a common pre-launch test in which a rocket’s engines are fired while it remains anchored to the ground — with the Flight 6 Ship vehicle.

And after that, more test missions will follow; SpaceX always has a few spaceships lined up, and it’s always itching to fly.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 10:35 a.m. EDT with new quotes, videos and images for the successful launch and landing test flight of Starship Flight 5.

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SpaceX Captures Giant Starship Booster During Historic Flight 5 Rocket Launch and Landing (Video)

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SpaceX Captures Giant Starship Booster During Historic Flight 5 Rocket Launch and Landing (Video)

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