SpaceX finally gets reusable rocket and Starship back intact

The fourth time was the charm. This Thursday SpaceX – Elon Musk’s aerospace company – finally managed to complete a mission without both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship ship exploding in mid-flight, as on the three previous occasions. Although in the case of the capsule, its re-entry into the atmosphere tested its resistance and almost ended in disaster again.

The ship, the largest ever built – 121 meters high – took off without problems and as planned from Boca Chica (Texas) at 7:50 a.m. local time (2 p.m. in Spain).

SpaceX’s plan was for the huge Super Heavy rocket powering the capsule to return to Earth six minutes after launch. A milestone that had not been achieved in any of the three previous attempts. That’s how it was and the booster, three minutes later, detached from the capsule and made a soft splashdown, three minutes later, over the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

It was the fourth mission of the ship that will take man back to the Moon and perhaps, for the first time, to Mars.

For the Starship capsule, the idea was for it to ignite its own rockets and begin an hour and a half journey toward the Indian Ocean, at the northwestern tip of Australia. The critical moment was re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. It must be remembered that on its most recent flight, in March of this same year, the Starship exploded precisely in the Earth’s atmosphere while trying to return. This time, the mission was completed successfully, although not without great doses of emotion and uncertainty.

Less than 60 km from the ocean surface, the ship began to suffer the ravages of high temperatures, up to 400oC, that are produced during this maneuver due to the blanket of plasma that surrounds any object that enters the atmosphere at high speed. At that moment the ship was traveling at more than 16,000 km/h and, thanks to the live broadcast offered by SpaceX itself, it was possible to observe how one of the Starship’s front flaps, the devices responsible for controlling the stability of the ship, It was beginning to lose its protection tiles and was seriously deteriorating, leading to fears that the ship would lose control during a maneuver or that it would do so when the ship’s rockets were turned on again so that it could regain its vertical position and land.

But the Starship held on and finally landed as planned. Musk himself couldn’t hide his excitement when he posted on his X account that “despite the loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, the Starship managed a soft landing in the ocean!”

It should also be noted that usually, during re-entry into the atmosphere, communications between spacecraft and the Earth are lost, precisely due to the blanket of plasma that is created and that interferes with communications. On this occasion it was possible to see it in all its drama thanks to the connection offered by Starlink, the satellite internet connection company also owned by Musk. Precisely, one of the future uses of the Starship will be to launch larger Starlink satellites.

In this quarter flight, rather than reaching the planned orbit, the goal was “to demonstrate the ability to return and reuse Starship and Super Heavy”, which includes achieving “a controlled entry” of the ship. In the attempt last March, neither of the two stages managed to return to Earth

On this occasion, neither the rocket nor the capsule were recovered to be reused, something that will happen in future launches, since it is one of the strong points of the Starship project. The goal of this fourth attempt was for both the booster and the ship to survive and return intact.

The success of this mission is very important. Given its lower cost and greater payload capacity, Starship and the Super Heavy rocket are Musk and NASA’s big bet for man to return to the Moon soon – presumably in 2026 – beyond a future manned trip to Mars. .