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Huge SpaceX mechanical arms catch rocket booster

SpaceX pulls the catch off on its first attempt

Source: SpaceX

SpaceX has successfully caught a rocket booster returning back to Earth after a test launch, bringing it a step closer to building reusable space vehicles.

In its fifth Starship test flight, SpaceX returned the rocket’s towering first-stage booster back to its Texas launch pad for the first time on Sunday (US time) using giant mechanical arms.

It was another novel engineering feat in the company’s push to build a reusable Moon and Mars vehicle.

The rocket’s first stage “Super Heavy” booster lifted off at 7.25am local time from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas launch facilities.

It sent the Starship second-stage rocket on toward space before separating at an altitude of roughly 70 kilometres to begin its return to land – the most daring part of the test flight.

The Super Heavy booster re-lit three of its 33 Raptor engines to slow its speedy descent back to SpaceX’s launch site, as it targeted the launch pad and tower it had blasted off from.

The tower, taller than the Statue of Liberty at more than 120 metres, is fitted with two large metal arms at the top.

With its engines roaring, the 70-metre-tall Super Heavy booster fell into the launch tower’s enclosing arms, hooking itself in place by tiny, protruding bars under the four forward grid fins it had used to steer itself through the air.

“The tower has caught the rocket!!” CEO Elon Musk wrote on X after the catch attempt.

SpaceX engineers watching the company’s live-stream roared in applause.

“Are you kidding me?” SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company’s webcast.

“What we just saw, that looked like magic.”

The novel catch-landing method marked the latest advance in SpaceX’s test-to-failure development campaign for a fully reusable rocket designed to loft more cargo into orbit, ferry humans to the Moon for NASA and eventually reach Mars – the ultimate destination envisioned by Musk.

Meanwhile Starship, the rocket system’s second stage or top half, cruised at roughly 27,360km/h, 143 kilometres up in space, heading for the Indian Ocean near Western Australia to demonstrate about 90 minutes into flight a controlled splashdown.

As Starship re-entered Earth’s atmosphere horizontally, onboard cameras showed a smooth, pinkish-purple hue of super-hot plasma blanketing the ship’s Earth-facing side and its two steering flaps, intense hypersonic friction displayed in a glowing aura.

The ship’s hot side is coated with 18,000 heat-shielding tiles that were improved since SpaceX’s last test in June, when Starship completed its first full test flight to the Indian Ocean but suffered tile damage that made its re-entry difficult.

Starship this time appeared more intact upon reigniting one of its six Raptor engines to position itself upright for the simulated ocean landing.

The SpaceX live-stream showed the rocket touching down in the night-time waters far off the Australian coast, then toppling on its side, concluding its test mission.

A separate camera view from a vessel near the touchdown site then showed the ship exploding into a vast fireball, as SpaceX engineers could be heard on the live-stream screaming in celebration.

It was unclear whether the explosion was a controlled detonation or the result of a fuel leak.

Musk said the ship landed “precisely on target!”.

Starship, which was unveiled by Musk in 2017, has exploded several times in testing stages on past flights.

In June, it completed its first full flight.

On Saturday, the US Federal Aviation Administration approved SpaceX’s launch licence for the fifth test.

It followed weeks of tension between the company and its regulator over the pace of launch approvals and fines related to SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9.

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