The engines turned off and there it was. Many of the spectators lucky enough to be there jumped up and down for joy, hugged their friends or let out an ecstatic scream. I took a few final photos and returned to his laptop grinning and speechless, wondering how to put it all into words.
Once the smoke cleared, the rocket looked as good as new at first glance. There was no soot on the outside of the booster, like on the Falcon 9 rocket after returning from space. This is because the Super Heavy booster and the Starship use cleaner-burning methane fuel instead of kerosene.
SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk later said that the outer ring of engine nozzles on the bottom of the rocket showed signs of heat damage. He said this would be “easily addressed.”
What's not so easy to answer is how SpaceX can top this. A landing on the moon or Mars? Certainly, but realistically those milestones are still years behind us. Something will happen before then.
Soon, SpaceX will attempt to retrieve a spaceship from the launch pad at the end of an orbital flight. This will be an extremely difficult feat, far surpassing the challenge of capturing the Super Heavy booster.
Super Heavy reaches only a fraction of the height and speed of the Starship's upper stage, and although the booster size and capture method increase the difficulty, the rocket follows much the same up-and-down flight profile developed by the Falcon 9. The spaceship, on the other hand, will reenter the atmosphere from its orbital speed, fly through the air surrounded by superheated plasma, and then shift itself into a horizontal orientation for a final descent that SpaceX likes to call the “belly flop.”
In the final few seconds, Starship will reignite three of its engines, tilt itself vertically and come down for a precision landing. SpaceX demonstrated the ship could do this during last week's test flight, when the vehicle made a controlled landing on the target in the Indian Ocean after traveling halfway around the world from Texas.
If all goes according to plan, SpaceX could be ready to attempt to capture a real spaceship next year. Stay informed.
