SpaceX Starship launch: Mechanical arms catch Super Heavy rocket booster

SpaceX Starship Launch 5 test flight

SpaceX's Starship made a perfect landing back on the launch pad on Sunday. The Super Heavy booster and Starship capsule is known as the Super Heavy.

BOCA CHICA, Texas - The boldest test flight yet of SpaceX’s Starship rocket ended Sunday with a set of mechanical arms catching the returning booster back at the launch pad.

Dubbed "chopsticks," the monstrous arms were attached to the launch tower in Boca Chica, Texas, and caught the 232-foot ‘Super Heavy’ booster in an engineering first.

"This is a day for the engineering history books," Kate Tice, SpaceX manager of quality systems engineering, said in a live broadcast of the event. "This is absolutely insane! On the first ever attempt we have successfully caught the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower."

Starship is the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built with 33 methane-fuel engines on the booster alone.

Starships Super Heavy Booster is grappled at the launch pad in Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 13, 2024, during the Starship Flight 5 test. (Photo by SERGIO FLORES/AFP via Getty Images)

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NASA has ordered two Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. SpaceX intends to use Starship to send people and supplies to the moon and, eventually, Mars.

Towering almost 400 feet, the empty Starship blasted off at sunrise from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. It arced over the Gulf of Mexico like the four Starships before it that ended up being destroyed, either soon after liftoff or while ditching into the sea. The last one in June was the most successful yet, completing its flight without exploding.

This time, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk upped the challenge and risk by bringing the rocket booster back to the launch pad – recycling boosters can speed up launch rates and save Space X millions.

"The tower has caught the rocket!!" Musk posted on X. "Science fiction without the fiction part."

Company employees screamed in joy Sunday, jumping and pumping their fists into the air as the booster slowly lowered itself into the launch tower’s arms.

"Even in this day and age, what we just saw is magic," SpaceX's Dan Huot observed from near the launch site. "I am shaking right now."

An hour later, the empty Starship rocket made a controlled landing in the Indian Ocean as planned, adding to the day's success.

"What a day," Huot said. "Let's get ready for the next one."