SpaceX Catches a Booster — a Big One
SpaceX succeeded today in catching its biggest booster, Super Heavy, back at the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. Standing 71 meters tall and 9 meters in diameter, the booster separated from the Starship second stage, flipped around and returned to the launch tower from which it had just departed in another impressive engineering achievement for the company. Meanwhile, Starship continued on its journey to what appears to have been a successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
The Super Heavy “booster catch” was just one part of SpaceX’s Integrated Flight Test-5, or IFT-5, but will certainly go down in the history books.
Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/6R5YatSVJX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024
SpaceX has made recovering and reusing rocket first stages routine with Falcon 9, which lands either on an autonomous drone ship at sea or a landing pad on terra firma. To date Falcon 9 first stages have landed 333 times and reflown 308 times. The Falcon 9 second stages are not recovered.
Starship/Super Heavy is SpaceX’s rocket for the future. Super Heavy is the first stage. Starship is the second stage and will carry cargo and/or people to Earth orbit and beyond. Starship is 50 meters tall, so the combination is 121 meters (397 feet) high and 9 meters (29.5 feet) in diameter. Both stages are reusable.
The Starship second stage also seems to have made a successful suborbital flight, with splashdown in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia.
Splashdown confirmed! Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting fifth flight test of Starship! pic.twitter.com/FhCGznq9RO
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024
A lot of flames were visible in video from SpaceX’s pre-positioned buoy, but whether or not that was expected is unclear. At the time of the last test flight, IFT-4, in June, SpaceX said Starship made a soft landing despite burn-through on some of the four flaps that steer the vehicle. However, SpaceX webcast commentators Kate Tice and Dan Huot said they were hoping for a better outcome today, specifically that “all four flaps stay more intact than they did last time” and Starship would “splash down at a little bit of a gentler angle this time instead of just hit the water, fall over, and the goal is try and keep the ship intact.”
SpaceX posted video of the entire flight on its website.
Starship not only is important to SpaceX’s own future plans for continuing to launch thousands of Starlink satellites into Earth orbit and, eventually, millions of people to Mars, but to NASA.
NASA contracted with SpaceX to use Starship as the Human Landing System for NASA’s first two Artemis missions to put astronauts back on the Moon. The first, Artemis III, is scheduled for just two years from now in September 2026. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson posted his congratulations on X.
Congratulations to @SpaceX on its successful booster catch and fifth Starship flight test today! As we prepare to go back to the Moon under #Artemis, continued testing will prepare us for the bold missions that lie ahead — including to the South Pole region of the Moon and then… https://t.co/zpj3Ht8319
— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) October 13, 2024
This article has been updated.
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