SpaceX wants to reach Starship upper stage with giant ‘chopsticks’ in 2025

Following a groundbreaking Starship test flight in which the booster was captured mid-air by a massive metal tower, SpaceX is already planning to do the same to the rocket’s upper stage to pave the way for full reusability of its heavy launch vehicle.

Starship lifted off on Sunday, October 13, at 8:25 a.m. ET from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, for the rocket’s fifth test flight. For the first time, the rocket’s 71-meter-tall Super Heavy booster gently descended toward a special launch tower, which caught the massive launch vehicle in its arms like a kangaroo stuffing its baby into its pouch. Meanwhile, Starship’s upper stage completed its flight with a controlled fall into the Indian Ocean, landing precisely near a buoy, or some type of flotation device, equipped with a camera.

“Ship inversion maneuver and landing burn in its fifth flight test,” SpaceX wrote in an X post on Friday, sharing a video of the upper stage crash. “Enhancements to the vehicle ensured that the flaps were protected against high temperatures, resulting in a controlled entry and high-precision splashdown into the target area in the Indian Ocean.”

Starship spin maneuver and landing burn on its fifth flight test. Improvements to the vehicle ensured that the flaps were protected against high heat, resulting in a controlled entry and high-precision splashdown into the target area in the Indian Ocean. pic.twitter.com/nLIQLLVMv1

-SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 18, 2024

The 50-meter-high upper stage, however, is not destined for late-night swimming, while the booster gets all the attention. SpaceX is planning to capture Starship’s upper stage, also known as Ship, using the same daring maneuver as early as next year. “We hope that early next year we can catch the ship as well,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk wrote on X.

“Starship achieved a smooth, precise landing in the ocean, clearing the path for return to the launch site and being picked up by the tower arms, like the booster,” Musk elaborated in a later post on Friday. “Complete and rapid reuse improves the cost of access to orbit and beyond by >10,000%. It is the fundamental technological advance needed to make life multiplanetary and to become a true space civilization.”

It seems like an achievable goal, considering how far the company has come in pushing the limits of its rocket with each test flight. SpaceX first launched its Starship rocket in April 2023, but its debut was less than ideal as the vehicle suffered a fatal crash that forced ground controllers to issue a self-destruct command just before four minutes into the mission.

In November 2023, Starship’s second test flight resulted in the in-flight destruction of the Super Heavy booster and upper stage, but was still a vast improvement over its maiden flight. For the third test flight in March, Starship successfully performed a stage separation, completed a full burn of the second stage engines, demonstrated internal propellant transfer for NASA, and tested the Starlink dispenser port. Starship’s fourth liftoff in June broke new ground compared to its previous test flights, with the rocket largely surviving peak heating and maximum aerodynamic pressure during its controlled reentry.

The most recent test flight exceeded all expectations with an incredible feat of engineering that paves the way for the rocket’s next missions. Ultimately, SpaceX plans to recover and reuse the Starship booster and its upper stage, but it has more experience landing boosters. The company’s Falcon 9 booster rocket has been recovered more than 300 times since its debut in 2010.

SpaceX has already tested the landing capabilities of Starship’s upper stage, which is also designed to land alone, similar to the Falcon 9 rocket. Between December 2020 and March 2021, SpaceX conducted high-altitude flight tests of the Starship prototypes. stars SN8 to SN11 of Boca Chica, Texas. SN8 and SN9 reached target altitudes but crashed upon landing due to technical problems. SN10 landed successfully, but exploded soon after due to damage from a hard landing. SN11, the final test of the prototypes, also ended with a major crash.

SpaceX has big plans for Starship, hoping it will be ready in time to launch NASA’s Artemis 3 mission in September 2026 and possibly deliver the first human missions to Mars in the near future. The rover’s upper stage needs to be able to perform a precise landing on the lunar surface, and even the dusty surface of Mars at some point, but capturing it with the Mechazilla turret on Earth could help improve its chances of reuse.

So far, the company has made progress with its Starship rocket and we’re excited to see what’s next.