SpaceX launched its fifth Starship vehicle Oct. 13, successfully making an unprecedented “catch” of its Super Heavy booster back at the launch site.
The Starship/Super Heavy vehicle lifted off from the company’s Starbase site at Boca Chica, Texas, at 8:25 a.m. Eastern on a mission called Flight 5 by SpaceX.
The main upgrade for this test was an attempt by SpaceX to recover the Super Heavy booster by having it come back to the launch site, where it would be cradled by two mechanical arms, sometimes called “chopsticks,” attached to the launch tower it lifted off from. That required the booster to perform precise boostback and landing burns to guide the stage back to the launch pad.
The Super Heavy booster, known as Booster 12, achieved that feat. The booster descended over the pad and the two arms closed around the top of the booster, just below the grid fins, about seven minutes after liftoff, achieving the desired catch of the booster.
Is there a possibility that they might skip the last two V1 Starships and jump straight to S33?
For a ship catch, they could potentially leave the ship in a coast phase for multiple orbits while they safe and destack the booster.