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‘Looked Like Magic’: SpaceX Successfully Launches Super Heavy Booster, Returns It To Launch Tower

SpaceX successfully completed one of the greatest engineering achievements in the history of space travel on Sunday morning, launching the Starship spacecraft and then returning the Super Heavy booster used for the launch back to the launch site.

The 232-foot Super Heavy booster blasted off at approximately 8:25 a.m. ET and returned to the launch site within minutes, where it was caught in mid-air by two massive metal arms that Elon Musk’s company refers to as its “chopsticks.”

The company said it was a mid-flight decision to attempt the return to the Texas launchpad. SpaceX engineers could be heard cheering on the livestream as its host heralded the “absolutely insane” achievement, saying it “looked like magic.”

“This is absolutely insane!” the engineer said as the booster was caught. “On the first ever attempt, we have successfully caught the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower. What an incredible feeling.”

The return of the booster to Earth is a major milestone for the future of space travel. The ability to reuse rocket parts for multiple spaceship launches drastically changes the economics of the industry, putting Musk’s dream to “revolutionize humanity’s ability to access space” in sight.

“With each flight building on the learnings from the last, testing improvements in hardware and operations across every facet of Starship, we’re on the verge of demonstrating techniques fundamental to Starship’s fully and rapidly reusable design,” SpaceX said ahead of the successful test. “By continuing to push our hardware in a flight environment, and doing so as safely and frequently as possible, we’ll rapidly bring Starship online and revolutionize humanity’s ability to access space.”

The first time SpaceX launched the Super Heavy booster was last April. There was no intention for it to return to the launchpad as it did this morning, and it exploded before it would have been able to.

A massive effort was undertaken to improve the rocket since then. One of the most important improvements was a rebuild of the Starship’s “heatshield,” designed for it to withstand the temperatures of reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. The spaceship could be seen turning bright red as it flew through space, but the improved “heatshield” appeared to be holding up during flight.

The Starship remained in its test flight, which is expected to last just around an hour. It will attempt to land in the Indian Ocean. Unlike the booster, the Starship isn’t yet built to survive the landing.

More than four million people are tuned in to watch the livestream.