SpaceX Successfully caught a Superheavy booster for the first time!
SpaceX launched Starship’s fifth flight test and returned the superheavy booster to its launch site and successfully caught by the chopsticks.
On sunday Oct. 13, at 7:25 AM CDT (12:25 UTC), Starship (Ship 29) and Superheavy Booster (booster 12) Lifted-off from Launch pad A at Starbase, a little more than two minutes into flight the Superheavy booster separated from the Ship in a hot Stage separation, the booster performed a flip maneuver followed by a boostback burn, about two seconds after that burn ends the hot stage ring separated from the booster.
The main upgrade for this flight profile was to attempt to recover the Super Heavy booster by having it come back to the launch site, where it would be cradled by two mechanical arms, The “chopsticks,” attached to the launch tower it lifted off from.
The booster successfully 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 SpaceX most ambitious test objectives yet to demonstrate techniques fundamental to Starship and Super Heavy’s fully and rapidly reusable design, This returning to the pad menauver required healthy systems on the booster and the launch tower and a manual command from the mission’s Flight Director.
For the Starship Upper Ship, Ship(29) engines remain lit for just under Six minutes during its ascent before Shutdown for the coast phase, It coasted along its planned trajectory to the other side of the planet before executing a controlled reentry, passing through the phases of peak heating and maximum aerodynamic pressure, before executing a flip, landing burn, and splashdown at its target area in the Indian Ocean. The flight test concluded at splashdown 1 hour, 5 minutes and 40 seconds after launch.
Upgrades that led to flight 5 success
Extensive upgrades ahead of flight 5 have been made to hardware and software across Super Heavy, Starship, and the launch and catch tower infrastructure at Starbase. SpaceX engineers have spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize the chances for success.
One of the key upgrades on Starship ahead of flight was a complete rework of its heatshield, with SpaceX technicians spending more than 12,000 hours replacing the entire thermal protection system with newer-generation tiles, a backup ablative layer, and additional protections between the flap structures.
FLIGHT 5 TIMELINE
Hr/Min/Sec Event
00:00:02 Liftoff
00:01:02 Max Q (moment of peak mechanical stress on the rocket)
00:02:33 Super Heavy MECO (most engines cut off)
00:02:41 Hot-staging (Starship Raptor ignition and stage separation)
00:02:48 Super Heavy boostback burn start
00:03:41 Super Heavy boostback burn shutdown
00:03:43 Hot-stage jettison
00:06:08 Super Heavy is supersonic
00:06:33 Super Heavy landing burn start
00:06:56 Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and catch attempt
00:08:27 Starship engine cutoff
00:48:03 Starship entry
01:02:34 Starship is transonic
01:03:43 Starship is subsonic
01:05:15 Landing flip
01:05:20 Landing burn
01:05:34 An exciting landing!.