SpaceX’s Starship has accomplished its fifth check flight, as Elon Musk pushes forward in his quest to sooner or later take astronauts to the Moon – possibly even to Mars.
Throughout this flight, the SpaceX crew tried one thing that had by no means been executed earlier than.
In contrast to in earlier flights, when the booster splashed down within the Indian Ocean, it slowed itself down and descended gently again towards the launchpad for a pair of large mechanical arms to catch it – in what’s referred to as the “chopsticks manoeuvre”.
Watch the second the SpaceX management room erupted in cheers because the transfer was efficiently accomplished, an achievement the BBC’s Pallab Ghosh described as “completely astonishing”.