SpaceX launches Starship rocket and catches booster in giant metal arms
SpaceX launches Starship rocket and catches booster in giant metal arms
Elon Musk’s huge rocket sets off on test flight before upper stage splashdown and explosion in Indian Ocean
Elon Musk’s SpaceX achieved a significant milestone on Sunday by catching the massive booster stage from its Starship rocket in a pair of robotic arms as it fell back to the company’s launchpad in southern Texas.
The historic feat, which drew praise from astronauts and space experts, topped a successful fifth test flight for the uncrewed Starship, which blasted off from the Boca Chica starbase at 7.25am local time (1325 BST) on Sunday.
As the rocket’s 71-metre (233ft) Super Heavy booster separated 40 miles (65km) above the Earth, the upper stage pushed on to an altitude of nearly 90 miles, looping around the planet at 17,000 mph before splashing down in the Indian Ocean as planned.
A bit on the why:
To SpaceX and Musk’s credit, whether the company’s second attempt at catching rockets goes as well as the first, some version of the massive ‘chopstick’ arms SpaceX is working on was likely going to be necessary just to rapidly turn around boosters and Starships – and do so regardless (within reason) of weather conditions. By replacing a tower crane with giant arms, SpaceX will hopefully be able to stack Starship on Super Heavy (and Super Heavy on the launch mount) even in the high winds that are almost always present on the South Texas Gulf Coast. If SpaceX can also reliably catch boosters with those arms, it could be a significant upgrade for the operations side of Starship reusability. For now, though, only time will tell.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starship-launch-tower-mechazilla-arm-installed/
40The video is really cool.
36I find the video from afar really incredible too. You can see this giant, skyscraper sized rocket just falling down the sky at incredible speed.
https://x.com/i/status/1845444890764644694
PS: how can I link a twitter video without redirecting to the website ?
6One way is to put the link into something like this. https://twittervideodownloader.com/download
I don't think Twitter mirrors work any more unfortunately.
1
...I hope this doesn't awaken anything in me...
3
Hold me in your giant metal arms and say sweet things to me...
13Incredible control. You can see the engine flares vectoring the force to move the vehicle into place and keep it vertical.
7I thought they caught the actual Starship when I first heard the news. (Are they going to try that?) Not sure how catching a booster is better than just landing it.
2And they said it could be done
1yeah chopstick catch was awesome. the explosion of the spaceship after "landing" in the water wasnt.
the more people think sending some people to mars makes us interplanetary, the less people take action on climate change.
just like you were duped with the boring company so there is no work on a railroad system.
go eat a cybertruck.
-2Mars transformation to be Earth-like requires 100,000 years. By then we'd either have ended climate change already or it would have ended us
5So what are you doing with your life that allows you to judge others so easily?
-1
Ban these ozone hole-generating rockets
-41We should ban cruise ships before shit that's actually useful.
41Both, preferably
-6
It looks like SRBs and kerosene deplete ozone, but hydrogen doesn't. I don't see any research yet on methane effects, but it doesn't produce a soot trail, so I'd guess it'd be more like hydrogen. Since starship uses methane and has an extremely efficient full flow engine, I think the effect on ozone would be extremely small.
11