At T+ 6 minutes and 30 seconds into the flight, Flight 5 Starship Super Heavy rocket booster re-ignited its engines as it prepared to land. But it’s a landing that no one had tried before — ever — catching a 71 m stainless steel structure with a mass of more than 250 tons.
SpaceX has made history once again. The Flight 5 Super Heavy Booster 12 rocket was safely and soundly caught by the Mechazilla (launch tower) Chopsticks on landing. The catch was made around T+ 6:49 seconds.
This is a historic moment in spaceflight history as I mentioned above, no government or private space agency has ever tried it before. Interestingly, SpaceX did it in the first attempt. The world was not expecting this outcome until the last moments.
The live stream of the Starship Flight 5 launch is still underway as of this writing. The 2nd stage Starship (Ship 30) spacecraft is still cruising in space and SpaceX aims to land it in the Indian Ocean like the Flight 4 launch test.
The great thing about the landing catch was that the Super Heavy booster was perfectly caught by the Chopsticks. The pins installed on the forward section perfectly aligned and anchored with the Chopstick connecting points on both the left and right arms. The booster didn’t hang on the grid fins.
The Raptor engines are getting cooled down with the chilled liquid gases (liquid oxygen and methane) as they endured the atmospheric entry and landing burn.
SpaceX has achieved a major milestone in large spacecraft and rocket booster reusability. The successful catch has saved the majority of the Super Heavy booster and we will surely see it back on the launch pad in the near future.
Flight 6 Starship is already prepared to perform a test, it’s just a matter of time before SpaceX obtains regulatory approval for the next launch. Flight 6 if happens before Christmas, will be the 4th Starship flight launch test in 2024 and the 2nd landing test.
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