SpaceX achieved a significant milestone on Sunday by successfully completing the fifth test flight of its massive spacecraft, Starship. Notably, for the first time, the company recovered the rocket back to the launch tower, a crucial step toward making rockets fully reusable.
Starship lifted off at 7:25 a.m. (Central Time) from SpaceX’s Starbase facility at Boca Chica Beach in southern Texas. About three minutes into the flight, the first-stage booster, Super Heavy, separated from the spacecraft. Super Heavy then began its return to Earth, firing its engines as it descended toward the launch tower. Roughly seven minutes after liftoff, it was successfully caught by the tower’s robotic arms.
This marked the first use of a novel recovery technique involving two large robotic arms, nicknamed “chopsticks” due to their design, to catch the rocket mid-air. The maneuver executed flawlessly on the first attempt, is part of a system SpaceX calls “Mechagodzilla,” inspired by the iconic movie monster.
While Super Heavy was being recovered, the second stage of Starship continued its flight, orbiting the Earth for about 75 minutes. Reaching an altitude of approximately 130 miles (210 kilometers) at a speed of over 16,000 mph (26,000 km/h), the spacecraft completed its designated orbit, re-entered the atmosphere, and splashed down in the ocean without incident. The test flight was unmanned.
SpaceX engineers had spent years preparing for this recovery attempt, conducting months of rigorous testing. Although SpaceX had previously recovered the smaller Falcon 9 rocket through self-landing, this marked the first successful recovery of Super Heavy, which stands 233 ft (71 meters) tall and 30 ft (9 meters) wide. The four previous test flights ended in explosions or rocket losses.
SpaceX aims to refine this technology to recover and reuse the second-stage spacecraft. The Starship, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes, is being developed for lunar and Martian exploration. CEO Elon Musk envisions the spaceship as part of his long-term goal to colonize Mars.
Following the success, Musk commented on X (formerly Twitter), saying, “Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today.”
Starship is also slated to play a key role in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon in its third phase.
