SpaceX launched its enormous Starship rocket on October 13, 2024 on its boldest test flight yet, catching the returning booster back at the launch pad with mechanical arms.
- Towering almost 400 feet (121 meters), the empty Starship blasted off from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border.
- SpaceX brought the first-stage booster back to land at the pad from which it had soared seven minutes earlier.
- The launch tower sported monstrous metal arms, dubbed chopsticks, that caught the descending 232-foot (71-meter) booster.
About Starship plant
- Starship is the most powerful rocket to fly. SpaceX aims to develop it into a rapidly reusable vehicle that can take large payloads into orbit, land back on Earth and launch another mission within hours.
- SpaceX has been recovering the first-stage boosters of its smaller Falcon 9 rockets for nine years, after delivering satellites and crews to orbit from Florida or California.
- But they land on floating ocean platforms or on concrete slabs several miles from their launch pads — not on them. Recycling Falcon boosters has sped up the launch rate and saved SpaceX millions.
- The fifth test flight was the first attempt at catching Starship’s Super Heavy booster – the first stage of the rocket – as it drops back to the launch pad.
- SpaceX’s launch tower, called Mechazilla, was equipped with a pair of “chopsticks” that grabbed the booster at a specific point and secured it, allowing it to be lowered to the ground.
