Prime Highlights:
- SpaceX successfully landed its giant Starship rocket and caught the booster in mid-air in mechanical arms.
- The top-stage Starship spaceship performed a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean in a success.
Key Facts:
- October 13, 2024, was the day of the launch from SpaceX’s Texas headquarters, Starbase.
- The Super Heavy booster used engines to slow down and was caught by the launch tower’s “chopsticks.”
- The Starship top stage flew safely to space and descended close to the coast of Australia.
Key Background:
SpaceX carried out the fifth Starship test flight on October 13, 2024 — a flagship achievement for reusability in rockets. The two-section Starship rocket, consisting of the Super Heavy booster and top stage Starship, are packaged together to form the tallest and most powerful rocket ever constructed.
The Super Heavy booster stood at 233 feet high, towering over the Starship on the top of SpaceX’s Falcon Starship Boca Chica launch pad in Texas. Around seven minutes into flight, at around 70 kilometers high, the booster detached from the Starship. The booster used three of its 33 Raptor engines to decelerate and gently land itself back at the launch pad.
In a record-breaking achievement, the booster achieved a never-before-seen catch by the enormous mechanical “chopsticks” of the launch tower. The recovery method is a first in the world and demonstrates the magnitude of SpaceX’s ambition to recover rockets in one piece, saving significantly on access to space.
Meanwhile, Starship upper stage fired into orbit at about 212 kilometers altitude. Having completed its job, it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and splashed down piloted into the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
This successful flight is a milestone in the evolution of SpaceX’s capability to achieve speedy reusability of spacecraft, a critical aspect of high-risk missions like going to the Moon and Mars with humans aboard. SpaceX’s development strategy of iterative refinement — flying frequently and improving incrementally — is enabling the company to overcome spaceflight’s thousands of challenges.
With booster recovery and controlled spacecraft splashdown, SpaceX is further ahead in completing its mission for affordable, sustainable spaceflight that could reveal new scientific findings and human life beyond the planet.
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