SpaceX Edges Closer To A Future of Reusable Rockets

On its fifth flight, the SpaceX team managed to land the two-stage Starship vehicle’s Super Heavy Booster back next to its 146m-high (480ft) ‘Mechazilla’ Launch Tower.

Starship is a fully reusable space transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, or to the Moon, or even to Mars and beyond, making the human race ‘multi-planetary’.

SpaceX claim that Starship is the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever, capable of carrying a payload of up to 150 metric tonnes (fully reusable) or 250 metric tonnes (expendable). Starship consists of the Starship Spacecraft and the liquid methane-powered, 71-metre (233ft) Super Heavy Booster – which is said to be twice as powerful as NASA’s Artemis rocket.

Instead of landing the booster in the ocean, as is usual, SpaceX slowed it from a speed over 17,000 mph (27,350 km/h), before guiding the booster back to the launchpad. There it was ‘caught’ in a pair of giant mechanical ‘chopstick’ arms attached to the Mechazilla Launch Tower.

This had never been done before and promises to allow the rapid reuse of the booster, thereby significantly reducing the cost (and timescale) of any future missions.

Info source: BBC