SpaceX successfully catches returning Starship for 1st time

Story: US SpaceX successful landing Starship rocket.; 2024-10-13; Follow Auther: Junaid Khan

The uncrewed mission on Sunday was the company’s first successful attempt to “catch” its Starship rocket as it lowered itself down to the launch pad.

The engineering breakthrough achieved by Elon Musk's space exploration company SpaceX on Sunday, October 13, 2024. The SpaceX rocket for the first time in history made, upright landing towards a massive metal landing tower, the Starship rocket is the company’s largest rocket.

Thousands watched the event live across the world, and hundreds of people were in attendance at the area surrounding the landing side. Everyone went cheering and celebrating after the unrealistic looking landing took place of the rocket. It was beautiful sunset time when the landing took place, making the visuals more appealing.

The event was live-streamed, the rocket descended from the sky, at speeds touching around 5,000+ km/h and soon started firing its thrusters to slow itself before navigating alongside the tower.

Earlier, SpaceX warned that the rocket’s slowdown from supersonic speeds would set off sonic booms, sending thunderous noises through the area surrounding its South Texas launch facility. The rocket booster stopped firing soon after the tower arms closed around it.

SpaceX Starship Rocket:

Starship rocket is the SpaceX's largest rocket, with nearly 400 feet (0.12 km) tall, and is composed of the Super Heavy booster and the Starship spacecraft.

The US based space exploration agency NASA has invested about $4 billion into the Starship and SpaceX program, it intends to use Starship to return its astronauts to the lunar surface as part of its Artemis program.

Starship has completed its fifth test flight for the fully integrated Starship today. The SpaceX’s goal is to make Starship rockets fully reusable for many cycle of use.

Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, wants to colonize the Mars and setup stations, colonies in outer space, with these rockets. He says with the reusable rockets, the expenses of space travelling could be reduced significantly, allowing common people to travel into space.

Musk also intends to start space tourism for cheap pricing with his SpaceX rocket programs.

Elon Musk’s company launched Starship at 8:25 a.m. ET from its Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas. The base where the booster landed is known as “chopstick” arms.