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Watch astonishing moment Starship booster caught in mid-air 'chopsticks manoeuvre'...


SpaceX's Starship has completed its fifth test flight, as Elon Musk pushes ahead in his quest to one day take astronauts to the Moon – maybe even to Mars.

During this flight, the SpaceX team attempted something that had never been done before...

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Watch astonishing moment Starship booster caught in mid-air 'chopsticks manoeuvre'...

SpaceX's Starship has completed its fifth test flight, as Elon Musk pushes ahead in his quest to one day take astronauts to the Moon – maybe even to Mars.

During this flight, the SpaceX team attempted something that had never been done before...

Catching the booster rather than getting it to land on the launch pad reduces the need for complex hardware on the ground and will enable rapid redeployment of the vehicle in the future. Elon Musk and SpaceX have grand designs that the rocket system will one day take humans to the Moon, and then on to Mars, making our species "multi-planetary".

The US space agency, Nasa, will also be delighted the flight has gone to plan. It has paid the company $2.8bn (£2.14bn) to develop Starship into a lander capable of returning astronauts to the Moon's surface by 2026. In space terms that is not that far away so Elon Musk's team were eager to get the rocket re-launched as soon as possible.

But Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), US govt body that approves all flights, had previously said there would be no launch before November as it reviewed the company's permits. Since last month the agency and Elon Musk have been in a public spat after the FAA said it was seeking to fine his company, SpaceX, $633,000 for allegedly failing to follow its license conditions and not getting permits for previous flights.

Before issuing a license, the FAA reviews the impact of the flight, in particular the effect on the environment. In response to the fine, Musk threatened to sue the agency and SpaceX put out a public blog post hitting back against "false reporting" that part of the rocket was polluting the environment. Currently FAA only considers the impact on the immediate environment from rocket launches rather than the wider impacts of the emissions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8xe7exjy1go

[Tee tiong huat]

Watch astonishing moment Starship booster caught in mid-air 'chopsticks manoeuvre'...

SpaceX's Starship has completed its fifth test flight, as Elon Musk pushes ahead in his quest to one day take astronauts to the Moon – maybe even to Mars.

During this flight, SpaceX team attempted something that had never been done before...

Can carry 100+ tonnes or100 people.

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Can carry 100+ tonnes or100 people.

https://youtu.be/98wvhTGreMM?si=EJUOq5QNVs-lbW84

[Tee tiong huat]

Can carry 100+ tonnes or100 people.

https://youtu.be/b28zbsnk-48?si=mEnD7pH6-g_63JWp

[Tee tiong huat]

Watch astonishing moment Starship booster caught in mid-air 'chopsticks manoeuvre'...
SpaceX's Starship has completed its fifth test flight, as Elon Musk pushes ahead in his quest to one day take astronauts to the Moon – maybe even to Mars. During this flight, the SpaceX team attempted something that had never been done before...

SpaceX's Starship 'chopstick landing' technique just made every Kerbal Space Program enthusiast go green with envy
Watching the latest SpaceX Starship booster return footage though, I felt that familiar itch return again (via BBC News). Elon Musk's pet space project has achieved many remarkable feats in the past few years, but manoeuvring a Super Heavy rocket booster down to a launch pad under its own power, turning upright on its end, and then catching it with a pair of chopsticks in mid-air in a perfect display of tech ballet really strikes as a breakthrough moment for spaceflight.

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Can carry 100+ tonnes or100 people.

Elon Musk's pet space project has achieved many remarkable feats in the past few years, but manoeuvring a Super Heavy rocket booster down to a launch pad under its own power, turning upright on its end, and then catching it with a pair of chopsticks in mid-air in a perfect display of tech ballet really strikes as a breakthrough moment for spaceflight.

What makes this even more impressive? It was the first proper attempt at this rocket booster capture method and one that SpaceX's engineers thought was something of a long shot. After all, the company has taken the tech industry approach of "move fast, break stuff" to something of an extreme in previous attempts to both launch and land its rocket boosters, and this new 'mid-air catch' method looked like its most ambitious version to date.

[Tee tiong huat]

Elon Musk's pet space project has achieved many remarkable feats in the past few years, but manoeuvring a Super Heavy rocket booster down to a launch pad under its own power, turning upright on its end, and then catching it with a pair of chopsticks in mid-air in a perfect display of tech ballet really strikes as a breakthrough moment for spaceflight.

What makes this even more impressive? It was the first proper attempt at this rocket booster capture method and one that SpaceX's engineers thought was something of a long shot. After all, the company has taken the tech industry approach of "move fast, break stuff" to something of an extreme in previous attempts to both launch and land its rocket boosters, and this new 'mid-air catch' method looked like its most ambitious version to date.

Elon Musk's pet space project has achieved many to blow your mind   
https://youtu.be/5C4YIv45DqI?si=Q7C5EomaaYll9EXg