Space rocket is caught again after 14 orbits around the Earth, and that is a first
The upper part of a SpaceX rocket has spectacularly returned and been caught on Earth after a flight through space. The projectile was caught by gigantic mechanical arms on a launch platform in Texas. This is the first time such a thing has happened.
On Friday afternoon local time, a new attempt was made from the Starbase launch site to launch the so-called Starship rocket and bring it back. Elon Musk's company wants to make a fully reusable rocket and this experiment is an important next step in that. The goal was to have the rocket, which consists of two parts, return completely. That was partly successful.
The upper component orbited the Earth fourteen times in a test flight of about 22 hours, after which it re-entered the atmosphere. The projectile slowed down and was caught around 3:20 p.m. local time by the two steel arms of the launch platform. Those arms have been nicknamed 'chopsticks'.
In this video you can see how the rocket was caught:
"That was the holy grail of space travel: plunging through fire only to be caught out of the air by steel. Now everything changes," a SpaceX spokesperson told news agency AFP.
The Starship rocket, at a height of 124 meters, is the largest rocket in the world. The part of the rocket that was caught is about fifty meters tall.
Explosion
SpaceX wanted to bring both parts of the rocket back to Earth intact. But for an as yet unknown reason, the catching of the lower part of the rocket was aborted.
When that part returned after the launch, conditions were not safe enough for a catch at the tower. The projectile was then diverted to the Gulf of Mexico for a sea landing. Just above the water surface, the component went up in flames.
According to Kate Tice, director of quality management at SpaceX, that was "absolutely not the news we had hoped for." The booster landing in the sea was, according to her, in line with "strict safety controls."
Life on planets
According to Musk, the complete return of the rocket would be a "crucial breakthrough" "needed to enable life on multiple planets."
Although only part of the rocket was caught, the space company is taking a big step towards rocket reusability. Reusing rockets would make space travel significantly less expensive. The SpaceX CEO hopes to eventually bring people to the moon and to Mars.
SpaceX has conducted multiple test flights in recent years, some of which resulted in explosions indicating errors. In September, a test flight orbited the Earth for the first time, although the engine failed during launch.