SpaceX Successfully Captures Super Heavy Booster After Launching Fifth Starship Flight

SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster successfully returned to the pad after liftoff to be picked up by the launch tower’s mechanical arms in an incredible feat on Sunday morning. The milestone occurred during the company’s fifth Starship flight and is a big step toward the rocket’s planned reuse. Starship launched around 8:25 a.m. ET from SpaceX’s Texas Starbase.

Landing rockets is nothing new for SpaceX, which has been reusing its flagship Falcon 9 for several years now, but the company took a completely different approach to recapturing the Super Heavy. While the Falcon 9 normally lands on a drone ship in the ocean, the Super Heavy returned to its launch site and had to navigate through the narrow opening between the launch towers’ extended “chopsticks.” The move ran the risk of destroying the turret if the Super Heavy did not execute it correctly. However, it did, and live footage from the flight test shows the booster parking itself neatly on the tower.