(Staff article from the ABC NEWS AUS on 14 October 2024.)
SpaceX's mechanical 'arms' successfully catch
Starship rocket booster back at launch pad, marking engineering milestone: Elon
Musk’s SpaceX has successfully managed to "catch" the booster rocket
from its Starship spacecraft back on the launching pad about seven minutes
after take-off.
Recycling the booster rockets for SpaceX's smaller
Falcon 9 rockets has saved the company millions. What's next? NASA has ordered
two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade, and SpaceX
eventually intends to use it to send people to Mars.
SpaceX pulled off its boldest test flight yet of the enormous Starship rocket on Sunday, catching the returning booster back at the launch pad with mechanical arms. Towering almost 121 metres tall, the empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the US-Mexican border.
It arced over the Gulf of Mexico like the four
Starships before it that ended up being destroyed, either soon after lift-off
or while ditching into the sea. The last one in June was the most successful
yet, completing its flight without exploding. This time, SpaceX founder and CEO
Elon Musk upped the challenge and risk.
The company brought the first-stage booster back to land at the pad from which it had soared seven minutes earlier. The launch tower, dubbed "Mechazilla" on SpaceX's social media, sported monstrous mechanical arms that caught the descending 71-metre-long booster. "The tower has caught the rocket!!" Mr Musk said on X.
Company employees screamed in joy as the booster
slowly lowered itself into the launch tower's arms. "Even in this day and
age, what we just saw is magic," SpaceX's Dan Huot observed from near the
launch site. "I am shaking right now."
"Folks, this is a day for the engineering history books," added SpaceX's Kate Tice from the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California.
SpaceX's Starship rocket lifts off from Starbase in
Boca Chica, Texas, for a test flight on October 13, 2024. It was up to the
flight director to decide, in real time with a manual control, whether to
attempt the landing. SpaceX said both the booster and launch tower had to be in
good, stable condition. Otherwise, it was going to end up in the gulf like the
previous ones.
Everything was judged to be ready for the catch. The
retro-looking stainless steel spacecraft on top continued around the world once
free of the booster, before executing a controlled splashdown in the Indian
Ocean, where it would safely sink. The entire flight lasted just over an hour.
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 back on their place of departure.
Recycling Falcon boosters has sped up the launch
rate and saved SpaceX millions. Musk intends to do the same for Starship, the
biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, with 33 methane-fuel engines on
the booster alone.
NASA has ordered two Starships to land astronauts
on the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use Starship to send people
and supplies to the moon and, eventually Mars.
Following is the official video of the whole Fifth Starship Launch and Booster Re-catch, from the SpaceX, please enjoy.
