Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX on Sunday successfully conducted its fifth test flight and made a historic catch of a Super Heavy booster with "Chopstick arms."
The 400-foot-tall Starship rocket along with the Heavy booster -- the world's largest and most powerful rocket -- launched the flight after 8 a.m. EDT (5:30 pm IST) from its Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas.
"Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster!" SpaceX said in a post on X after the Super Heavy booster successfully headed back to its launch site.
"The tower has caught the rocket!!" added Founder Elon Musk.
During its last flight in June, SpaceX achieved its first successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean with the upper stage of Starship.
"The new feat will be a key step in the company's quest for rapid reusability," the company said before the launch.
The company noted that its engineers had spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt.
It added that technicians poured tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximise the chances for success.
Further, SpaceX said that its Starship vehicle is in a 1-hour coast phase, where it will re-enter over the Indian Ocean, west of Australia.
"Starship's Raptor engine burn is complete and Starship has entered a coast phase," it said, observing that this trajectory does not call for a de-orbit burn to facilitate re-entry.
"This will maximize public safety but still make a controlled re-entry and soft water landing.
Meanwhile, SpaceX rival Blue Origin "congratulated" SpaceX over the achievement.
The company owned by Jeff Bezos will also retry launching the second crewed spacecraft for the second time in nearly a week after technical issues caused it to cancel its maiden launch attempt.
The second crewed New Shepard vehicle comprises a first stage called Booster 5 and a crew capsule named RSS Karman Line. Karman Line is defined as the internationally recognized boundary of space.
While crewless, the NS-27 mission will carry 12 research payloads on board, five of which are attached to the booster and seven inside the capsule.
These payloads range from new navigation systems under development for New Shepard to those under development for Blue Origin's massive New Glenn rocket, to two LIDAR sensors designed to operate in the lunar environment, according to Blue Origin.
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