After separating from the Starship at a height of 46 miles (74km), it returned to Boca Chica in Texas, seven minutes after launch, where it was grabbed and clamped in place using what are described as \u201cchopsticks\u201d.<\/p>\n
The catching of the booster was not guaranteed to go ahead. Both it and the launch tower had to be in good, stable conditions, SpaceX said.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
But it settled into position in what appeared to be a calm, controlled manner.<\/p>\n
SpaceX tweeted that \u201cMechazilla\u201d had caught the \u201cSuper Heavy booster!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you kidding me?\u201d SpaceX\u2019s Dan Huot said close to the launch site. \u201cI am shaking right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a day for the engineering history books,\u201d added SpaceX\u2019s Kate Tice.<\/p>\n
SpaceX owner Elon Musk said on X, which he also owns: \u201cThe tower has caught the rocket!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Space journalist Kate Arkless Gray said the booster was still travelling at a supersonic speed less than a minute before landing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe deceleration involved in that is wild,\u201d she told Sky News.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cSpaceX have really, really innovated. Even just a few years ago, the idea of bringing a booster back to land or a barge in the sea \u2013 no one was doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Starship, meanwhile, landed in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia, following its fifth test flight from a launch pad on the border with Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cSplashdown confirmed!\u201d, SpaceX said on social media.<\/p>\n
Starship and Super Heavy are designed to carry crew and cargo to the moon and beyond \u2013 and be reusable.<\/p>\n
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved the launch only yesterday, weeks earlier than expected.<\/p>\n
Previously, the FAA said a decision on Starship 5 was not expected until late November.<\/p>\n
But it said Elon Musk\u2019s company had \u201cmet all safety, environmental and other licensing requirements for the suborbital test flight\u201d.<\/p>\n
It has also approved the Starship 6 mission profile.<\/p>\n
Musk has heavily criticised the FAA \u2013 partly over the delay in approving the licence for Starship 5, which SpaceX said was ready in August.<\/p>\n
SpaceX describes Starship as the world\u2019s \u201cmost powerful launch vehicle ever developed\u201d, capable of carrying up to 150 metric tonnes.<\/p>\n
First unveiled in 2017, it has exploded several times in various stages of testing.<\/p>\n
In June, it successfully completed a full flight for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A SpaceX booster rocket has returned to earth and been caught by giant robotic arms…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5152,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}