Elon Musk’s SpaceX achieved a first on Sunday when part of its Starship rocket was successfully captured and brought back to the launch pad by a pair of mechanical arms.
“So SpaceX was the first company to ever land a rocket: Usually, when a company launches a rocket, there’s two stages, and both of them just go out into space and they burn up, never seen again,” explained Will Johns, a simulations lead for the Rocket Propulsion Laboratory at the University of Southern California.
Johns interned at SpaceX last summer, a company known for pushing the limits of aerospace technology. On Sunday, the company launched its most high-risk flight to date near Brownsville, Texas. It was the fifth test flight for Starship, potentially the most powerful launch vehicle developed for interstellar travel.
This is the first time any company has attempted, and succeeded, in returning a reusable rocket to the launch pad. A pair of mechanical arms, called Chopsticks, caught the 232-foot descending booster as people gathered to experience history firsthand.
“A lot of the big goals in space that we thought were really far away might be a lot closer than we think,” Johns said.
Traditional aerospace companies prefer a slow and steady workflow, but Starship’s successful voyage to Earth proved that an alternative method can produce results, he said.
“It’s so sick where you have private companies coming in and giving engineers a ton of freedom to just find problems and fix them the best way, and give them the funds to do that,” Johns said. “So I think I’m really excited just to go and chase down challenges like that.”
SpaceX’s founder, Elon Musk, has drawn controversy over Starship’s development cycle. An investigation by Reuters last year found that at least previously 600 unreported workplace injuries occurred at the company’s facilities including amputations, electrocutions, and in one case, a death due to head trauma.
Still, Musk’s company continues to push for fast-paced experimentation, like this weekend’s groundbreaking development with Starship.