SpaceX has given us a different perspective on the Starship megarocket’s epic fifth test flight.
The company made history with its Oct. 13 mission, capturing Starship’s super-heavy first stage booster in the launcher’s “chopstick” arm about seven minutes after liftoff.
But Starship’s 50-meter (165-foot) upper stage (known as Starship, or simply Ship) also led the return to Earth. It fell halfway around the world from its South Texas launch site for a pinpoint splashdown, SpaceX’s newly released video shows.
“The spacecraft’s flip maneuver and landing was blazed on its fifth flight test. Airframe modifications protect the flaps from high heat, resulting in a controlled approach and high-precision splashdown in target areas in the Indian Ocean. It happened,” SpaceX wrote on Friday (October). 18) A post to X who shared a 21 second video.
As SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk pointed out in a tongue-in-cheek reply to the company’s post, the video was shot from the surface of the ocean or from a floating object such as a buoy.
“Oh buoy, that’s a great video!” Musk wrote in X on Friday.
Related: Starship and Super Heavy Explained
There may not be any more ocean spray in the ship’s future. In the future, SpaceX plans to return not only the Super Heavy but also the upper stages to landing on the launcher tower, which Musk said seems quite possible given Flight 5’s performance.
“Starship achieved a precise and soft landing in the ocean, paving the way back to the launch site and being captured by a booster-like tower arm. Complete and rapid reuse reduces the cost of access to orbit and beyond. “It’s improved by over 10,000%. That’s the fundamental technological advancement we need to make life multiplanetary and become a true alien civilization,” the billionaire entrepreneur wrote in another Friday X post. I wrote it in
As the post states, SpaceX is developing Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, to help humans settle the Moon and Mars. The company believes that its combination of strength and complete and rapid reusability will help realize these long-held dreams.
