Video of SpaceX's miracle of launching and recovering a giant rocket

The "Super Heavy" first-stage booster lifted off at 7:25 a.m. CT from SpaceX's Boca Chica, Texas, launch facility, sending the Starship second-stage rocket into space before separating at an altitude of about 43 miles to begin its return to Earth.

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The Super Heavy booster re-ignited three of its 33 Raptor engines to slow its descent back to SpaceX’s launch site, as it aimed for the launch pad and the tower it launched from. The tower, which is taller than the Statue of Liberty at more than 400 feet, is topped with two large metal arms.

With a roar of engines, the 71-meter-tall Super Heavy rocket dropped into the launch tower's wraparound arms, hooking itself into place by small rods protruding from beneath the four front mesh wings that it used to steer through the air.

“Tower caught the rocket!!” CEO Elon Musk wrote on X after the attempt to catch the rocket. SpaceX engineers watching the company’s livestream erupted in applause.

SpaceX's Super Heavy rocket successfully landed in Boca Chica, Texas, USA on October 13, 2024. Photo: Reuters

It's the latest step in SpaceX's long-fought effort to fully reuse its space launch rocket, which is designed to put more cargo into orbit, send humans to the Moon for NASA and eventually reach Mars.

Meanwhile, the Starship, the second stage or upper half of the rocket system, flew at about 17,000 miles per hour at an altitude of 89 miles in space, heading toward the Indian Ocean near Western Australia to demonstrate the ability to make a controlled landing after about 90 minutes of flight.

SpaceX's livestream showed the rocket landing in the nighttime ocean off the coast of Australia, then tipping over, ending the test mission. A camera view from a ship near the landing site later showed the ship exploding into a large fireball. Musk said the ship landed "exactly on target!"

The Starship space launch system, first announced by Musk in 2017, has exploded multiple times in various stages of testing in the past, but successfully completed its first full flight in June.

Hoang Hai (according to SpaceX, Reuters, AFP)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/video-ky-tich-spacex-phong-va-thu-lai-duoc-ten-lua-khong-lo-starship-post316683.html