SpaceX Launches Starship and Successfully Returns it to Launch Site for the First Time

SpaceX successfully completed its latest test flight yesterday morning - launching and returning the Starship without a crew. This is the most powerful rocket system ever created, which Elon Musk hopes can one day be used to transport people to the Moon and even Mars.

During this flight, the SpaceX team tried to do something that had never been done before: unlike previous flights, when the booster fell into the Indian Ocean, it slowed down and gently descended back to the launch pad.

During the 30-minute flight, the super-heavy launch vehicle was successfully launched, returned, landed for the first time and captured. For the first time, this demonstration mission included test manoeuvring the 71-metre-high rocket booster to the giant landing structure. 

After it burned most of its fuel and broke away from the upper Starship spacecraft, the Super Heavy was picked up in mid-air by a pair of massive metal tongs that SpaceX calls ‘sticks’.

SpaceX's Starship is the world's largest and most powerful rocket and a giant accelerator that will launch the lander for NASA's Artemis 3 mission, which aims to land astronauts on the moon by 2026.