MILAN – SpaceX launched its fifth Starship on October 13, achieving an unprecedented “catch” of its Super Heavy booster at the launch site.

The Starship/Super Heavy vehicle lifted off from the company’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, at 8:25 a.m. Eastern time on a mission called SpaceX’s Flight 5.

The key upgrade for this test was an attempt by SpaceX to recover the Super Heavy booster by having it returned to the launch site, where it was carried by two mechanical arms, sometimes called “chopsticks,” attached to the launch tower , which he lifted from. This required the booster to perform precise boostback and landing operations to guide the stage back to the launch pad.

The Super Heavy Booster, known as Booster 12, achieved this feat. The booster lowered over the pad and the two arms closed around the top of the booster, just below the grid ribs, about seven minutes after liftoff, achieving the booster’s desired catch.

Achieving launch pad return and landing is critical to SpaceX’s long-term ambitions for a rapid re-flight of the vehicle. In the company’s vision, the landed launch vehicle could be quickly turned around on the landing pad and a spacecraft could be attached for its next flight within days or even hours.

The success of the catch seemed to surprise even business leaders. “I don’t know what to say!” posted Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and chief operating officer, included a video of the landing on social media.

Before takeoff, however, Bill Gerstenmaier, vice president of construction and flight reliability, was optimistic about the capture attempt. “We landed in the ocean with half a centimeter accuracy on the previous flight,” he said Oct. 9 at a meeting of the National Academies’ Committee on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, “so we think we have a reasonable chance have to fly.” back to the tower.”

Starship 30 flew on a suborbital trajectory similar to the previous flight in June, reaching a peak altitude of 212 kilometers. A splashdown in the Indian Ocean was planned around 65 minutes after takeoff.

Last minute license

The launch came less than 24 hours after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a revised launch license for the mission, sparking controversy last month after SpaceX complained that it had been informed by the FAA that the updated license had not yet been issued would be finished late November.

The license required revisions to an environmental impact assessment due to changes in the flight profile, including a larger area in which the intermediate ring, also called the forward heat shield in FAA documents, could be dropped in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a sonic boom analysis for the returning Super Heavy booster .

This environmental analysis, signed and published a few hours before the license was granted, concluded that “no structural damage or significant impacts to third party structures are expected from sonic booms.” “The proposed modification to the forward heat shield landing site is not expected to negatively impact biological resources in the Gulf of Mexico,” it said.

However, the analysis includes several conditions related to the overall effects of Starship launches in Boca Chica, including “field experiments to determine the extent of the gravel cloud impact area” caused by Starship launches that would support any measures to protect bird nests in the surrounding area wildlife refuge and to monitor other impacts of the launches on the birds there. The company must also provide an annual certification “certifying SpaceX’s compliance with all applicable environmental laws, regulations, permits or other approvals” related to launches on Starbase.

SpaceX’s compliance with these laws has also been the subject of controversy regarding the approval of a floodplain system at the launch site, which resulted in the company being fined nearly $150,000 by the Environmental Protection Agency for operating the floodplain system with an EPA permit agreed. The company said it had approval from Texas regulators.

The revised license requires SpaceX to provide the company with state and EPA approvals for the floodplain system and “send copies of all monitoring data to the FAA within 45 days of sampling the use of its floodplain system.”

The license allows SpaceX to conduct at least one additional launch, called Flight 6, with the same profile without seeking further approval from the FAA. “The license approval for SpaceX Starship/Super Heavy Flight 5 also includes FAA approval of the mission profile of Flight 6,” the agency said. “The FAA has determined that the changes required by SpaceX for Flight 6 are within the scope of what was previously analyzed.” The agency did not specify what changes were involved.

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