Elon Musk is an increasingly divisive figure on social media some argue he heavily and illegally interfered with the US election and some claim Tesla's recent product reveals amount to Vapor wear others see him as an engineering genius who is driving the next wave of innovation in multiple Industries one thing that is indisputable however is the incredible list of accomplishments of his space Venture SpaceX on October the 13th the world watched as SpaceX launched the world's most powerful rocket Starship took to the sky for the fifth time just a few minutes later the company achieved arguably
the most impressive feat of Engineering in history roughly 7 minutes after launch starship's first first stage booster super heavy descended back to Earth the enormous rocket booster as tall as a 20 story building left a trail of condensation in its wake during the dramatic descent before it could smash into the ground three of the booster's 33 Raptor engines roared to life to initiate a descent burn the super heavy booster then performed an incredibly precise hovering maneuver to descend into the Chopstick arms of spacex's mechazilla launch Tower Spectators gasped as the rocket came to a standstill
once the booster's fiery plume had dissipated showing the rocket and Mecha Zilla launch Tower were still intact they burst into cheers and Applause but why catch a rocket in the first place the maneuver wasn't performed purely for dramatic effect and it serves as an important function that could help SpaceX to eventually send dozens of Starship Rockets beyond Earth Elon Musk himself proposed the rocket catch idea several years ago and it is all down to mass rocket mass is one of the most important factors in rocketry it determines the Rocket's ability to get to space as
well as the amount of payload it can send to orbit in the case of Starship catching the rocket out of the sky allowed the engineers to remove one key component super heavy Landing legs those Landing legs would weigh several tons so removing them allows Starship to carry more payload into space as a point of reference space X's Falcon 9 rocket features Landing legs that make up roughly 8% of the Rocket's total weight at 397 ft or 121 M tall Starship is a much larger rockets and would therefore require incredibly sturdy and heavy Landing legs it
might also require more than Falcon 99's four Landing legs to hold super Heavy's weight during a landing maneuver catching Starship out of the sky is also part of Elon musk's plans for Rapid Starship turnaround times in the future if the booster is already in mechazilla mechanical grasp the robotic Chopstick arms can quick quickly position the booster back onto the launch Mount from there it can quickly be inspected and refueled for another launch in a tweet shortly after spacex's booster catch Elon Musk said Starship is designed to achieve reflight of its rocket booster ultimately within an
hour after liftoff the booster returns within about 5 minutes so the remaining time is reloading propellant and placing a ship on top of the booster before Space X successfully caught the super heavy booster out of the sky even Elon Musk acknowledged how crazy the plan was in a 2021 interview with YouTuber everyday astronaut the SpaceX CEO said I know it sounds insane when I suggested that people thought I lost my mind maybe I have it might take a few kicks at the can but we'll get it right fast forward to October 2020 4 and impressively
it only took SpaceX one try to successfully catch super heavy out of the sky to some it still felt crazy and surreal even after the fact shortly after the booster catch former SpaceX lead engineer Thomas Müller took to X and wrote epic moment I remember the meeting where Elon said we're not going to have Landing legs we're going to catch the booster in the air and we were all like what what these incredible moments are partly down to spacex's fail fast learn fast approach the company takes risks knowing it has several Starship prototypes waiting in
the wings before an upcoming launch SpaceX has often already conducted static fiber tests on the upper stages and boosters that will be used for the following flight of Starship Elon Musk has famously been quoted as saying failure is an OP here if things are not failing you are not innovating enough and what's next for SpaceX and Starship Elon Musk recently took to his social media platform to say SpaceX will catch the upper stage and will one day carry cargo and crew as soon as early 2025 though catching super heavy on the first try was an
incredible achievement it is in line with spacex's amazing achievement a Ms of the past SpaceX is the only company in the world to have a successful reusable rocket booster program with its Workhorse Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX has launched countless high-profile missions aboard Falcon 9 including the crew ISS missions for NASA and the first private space walk in history with Polaris Dorne Falcon 9 has a prolific track record with more than 350 successful launches and Landings to date and the Starship rocket capture and the mechazilla Chopstick arms are just one of the many Innovations of spacex's
Starship program once operational Starship will be the first fully reusable rocket in the world the Rocket's 33 Next Generation Raptor engines on super heavy produce 17 million pounds of thrust at launch making it by far the world's most powerful rocket during the last three Starship flight tests a starlink terminal has allowed SpaceX to stream stunning footage of the Starship upper stage re-entering Earth's atmosphere other impressive features on Starship include the vented interstage that allows the rocket to perform a hot stage separation after launch hot staging sees the upper stage start to fire its engines slowly
before separation the vented interstage allows the rocket plume to exit through vents preventing it from breaking the rocket apart this allows the upper stage to build up enough mum to keep a nominal trajectory after separation the super heavy booster descends back to Earth and the Starship upper stage continues on its way the Starship human Landing system or hls will also utilize the Rocket's impressive size to act as a base for future astronauts on the moon future NASA Artemis astronauts will launch to space aboard an Orion capsule at top NASA's space launch system the second most
powerful rocket in history after Starship once the astronauts reach lunar orbit they will then transfer across to Starship hls and descend to the Moon that's why besides the upcoming Starship upper stage catch inorbit refueling tests are arguably the most important coming milestones for SpaceX they will show that Starship can launch to orbit refuel and then travel to the Moon with enough fuel to land and launch back off the lunar surface effectively they will determine whether NASA can take humans back to the moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972 the Luna Landing will
be a historic upcoming milestone for SpaceX and NASA however spacex's ambitious plans don't end there in September musk posted on X that SpaceX aims to fly Starship to Mars in 2 years to coincide with the opening of the next Earth Mars transfer window that launch will be uncrewed so SpaceX can test starship's Landing capabilities on the red planet landing on Mars is notoriously difficult due to the planet's thin at osphere creating less friction to slow down a spacecraft according to musk if those Landings go well the first crude flights to Mars will launch in 4
years the launch rate of Mars bound Starships will grow exponentially from there musk continued and the goal will be to build a self-sustaining City in about 20 years all of this is of course part of musk's plan to make Humanity a space fairing civilization ation musk is of course known to have provided incredibly ambitious timelines and promises regarding his company's products in the past most of those promises haven't come true the SpaceX and Tesla CEO for example once claimed that Tesla vehicles would have level five autonomy meaning no human intervention required by 2021 however several
of musk's promises have come true to spectac spacular effect spacex's Starship rocket booster catch is a perfect example of the latter it adds to a long list of incredible achievements by SpaceX it's the type of event that inspires countless people to innovate and dream of the Stars the company has faced scrutiny in recent months as delays in starship's development have forced NASA to move back the arimus 3 Luna Landing to no earlier than September 2026 things seem to be back on track now and we can expect the launch Cadence of Starship flight tests to ramp
up as the company looks to finish developing the capabilities to fly to the moon and Mars it won't be long before we're talking about SpaceX and starship's next impressive Milestone achievement watch this space remember to hit the Subscribe button and ring that Bell to stay updated with our latest content and while you're here why not check out another one of our exciting videos thanks for watching and see you in the next one
