SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company, has once again made history and left little doubt that there is no mission too hard for them to accomplish. It set out to catch the Starship Super Heavy booster – the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built – and it succeeded... on the first try.
The test took place in the morning of 13 October. Propelled by its 33 Raptor engines, the Super Heavy booster, carrying the uncrewed Starship spacecraft, lifted off SpaceX’s Boca Chica installation to perform an unprecedented set of manoeuvres.
The rocket, over 120 metres tall, climbed for two and a half minutes until it reached an altitude of 70 kilometres at a horizontal position – expending most of its propellant – and separated from the Starship spacecraft located at the top.
At this point, Super Heavy started manoeuvring to orient itself towards the launch pad. As it approached, the arms of the 140 metre “Mechazilla” tower smoothly closed until it was caught mid-flight. SpaceX would thereby overcome its latest challenge thanks to the giant metal pincers, which they dubbed “chopsticks”.
In the future, the idea, as explained by Musk himself, is for these arms to be able to swing around and place the rocket back on the launchpad a few minutes after its return.
In this way, the rocket would be able to lift off once again a little over 30 minutes later, once refuelled.
Thus, the American company goes one step closer to accomplish one of its main objectives: to drastically reduce the time.
And cost of taking payloads to Earth orbit and deep space.
Polaris Dawn
During the last few weeks, SpaceX has also captured the world’s attention with its Polaris Dawn private space mission. This mission was commanded by multimillionaire Jared Isaacman. A retired pilot and two female SpaceX engineers completed the rest of the crew.
The Dragon capsule spent five days in orbit – a historic mission that included the first commercial spacewalk ever made.
As part of their voyage, these peculiar astronauts reached a maximum altitude of 870 miles (1,400 kilometres), over three times the altitude of the International Space Station (ISS), becoming the humans that travelled the furthest from Earth since the Apollo missions to the Moon.
