SpaceX successfully catches Super Heavy booster after launching Starship’s fifth flight

It’s a huge milestone in SpaceX’s plans to make Starship and the Super Heavy rocket a fully reusable system.

SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster successfully returned to the pad after liftoff to be caught by the launch tower’s mechanical arms in an incredible feat Sunday morning. The milestone came during the fifth flight of the company’s Starship, and is a huge step for the rocket’s planned reusability. Starship launched at about 8:25AM ET from SpaceX’s Texas Starbase.

Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! pic.twitter.com/6R5YatSVJX

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 13, 2024

Landing rockets is nothing new for SpaceX, which has now been reusing its Falcon 9 workhorse for several years, but the company took a completely different approach for recapturing Super Heavy. Whereas Falcon 9 typically lands on a drone ship out in the ocean, Super Heavy returned to its ...