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Elon Musk’s SpaceX completed a major engineering feat early Sunday morning when it captured a booster rocket with a mechanical arm as it returned from a test flight.
At dawn on the Texas coast, SpaceX launched its unmanned Starship rocket with its “super heavy booster.” After a short flight into the atmosphere, the booster separated from the Starship and plummeted vertically, slowing its fall with an engine explosion.
The boosters fell straight back onto the launch pad and were caught by the tower’s metal arms – called “chopsticks” – in a roar of smoke and fire.
“The tower caught the missile!!” Musk posted on his social media platform X. “Today, a major step toward making life multiplanetary has been made.”
“Even in this day and age, what we just saw is magic,” SpaceX chief communications officer Dan Huot said on the company’s webcast. “I’m shaking right now.”
The rest of the ship orbited the Earth and then plunged into the Indian Ocean as planned.
Sunday’s flight marked the fifth Starship launch for SpaceX, one of the world’s most valuable private companies. In June, the Starship Successful re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and also fell into the Indian Ocean. In September, SpaceX conducted for the first time privately funded spacewalk for two astronauts.
Successful booster capture was critical to Starship’s design as a fully reusable vehicle. Once Starship is operational, SpaceX will be able to make space trips faster, the company said. Morgan Stanley estimates a Starship flight to cost $100 million, and this estimate could eventually drop to $50 million.
SpaceX is preparing for a manned flight to the moon in 2025 and a lunar landing in 2026.
Morgan Stanley said in an April report that SpaceX was most recently valued at $180 billion, making it one of the 50 most valuable companies in the S&P 500 index. Its Starlink division built built the world’s largest satellite network, including 2.6 million subscribers.
“We expect Starship to be operational for commercial and government launches in 2027,” the report said. “By 2030 and beyond, we expect all SpaceX launches to be completed by Starship.”
But Sunday’s successful mission came two days after Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, unveiled a capable “robotaxi.” Does not impress investors. Tesla’s stock price has fallen 13% in the past 12 months.
Musk, the world’s richest person, has become one of Donald Trump’s strongest supporters. two exercise together at a rally in Pennsylvania this month.
