Amazing.! "Elon Musk changed the course of human history with the successful recovery of the booster."

Elon Musk has changed the course of human history.

Elon Musk's American space company SpaceX has successfully returned the first stage booster of the Starship spacecraft to its launch site. 

SPACE X

Elon Musk's American space company SpaceX has successfully returned the first stage booster of the Starship spacecraft to its launch site. Starship is being developed by SpaceX for Mars exploration. Until now, SpaceX's recovered rockets returned to locations far from the launch pad, but having the booster return directly to the launch pad allows for quicker reuse, significantly reducing costs.

On October 13, 2024, at 8:25 AM (local time, Eastern Standard Time), SpaceX achieved this feat during the fifth Earth orbital test flight of Starship, successfully returning the first stage booster, named "Super Heavy," to the launch pad. Just seven minutes after liftoff, the booster approached the launch pad, where the “chopstick arm” successfully caught it. SpaceX employees cheered, calling it "like magic," and Musk posted on X, "The tower caught the rocket." SpaceX engineer Kate Tice remarked, "It’s a day that will go down in engineering history."

SpaceX has been recovering and reusing the first stage boosters of its Falcon 9 rockets for the past nine years. This has significantly increased launch frequency and saved the company millions of dollars in launch costs. However, these boosters typically returned to barges located several miles offshore, often sustaining partial damage, which limited their reuse. SpaceX aims to fully recover both main components of Starship: the spacecraft itself and the booster that propels it.

If the booster can return directly to its launch site, as successfully demonstrated, rapid reuse becomes possible, greatly reducing the costs of spaceflight. The Associated Press reported that "a relaunch could be possible within 30 minutes," indicating that Starship could potentially fly multiple times in a single day. During this test flight, the booster was recovered at the launch pad, while the spacecraft was retrieved at a designated location in the Indian Ocean.

This test flight took place about four months after the fourth test launch on June 6. Musk has been developing Starship with the goal of enabling human colonization of Mars. The spacecraft is also set to be used in NASA's Artemis program, which aims to send humans back to the Moon for the first time in half a century. Starship measures 50 meters in length and 9 meters in diameter, with a payload capacity of up to 150 tons. When combined with the Super Heavy booster, which is 71 meters tall, the total height of the launch vehicle reaches 121 meters, making it the largest rocket ever launched.

The significance of this Starship booster reuse is particularly noteworthy because, unlike the Falcon 9, which is primarily used for launching satellites, Starship has the capability to carry up to 100 passengers and large cargo. The payload capacity of the Starship spacecraft is reported to be around 150 tons. By recycling rocket boosters, the utility of the spacecraft is expected to increase, similar to how trains and airplanes are used until they reach the end of their operational lives.

When comparing the traditional Ariane 5 rocket with the Starship-Super Heavy, the launch costs differ by about 80 times per mission, with Super Heavy's target launch cost being just 1.2% of that of the Ariane 5. The European Space Agency (ESA) has also launched the Ariane 6, designed for reusability, following the retirement of the Ariane 5. However, the Ariane 6 is still in its early stages, with a target launch cost of about $81 million per flight (approximately 109.7 billion won).

Musk has stated that "a launch cost of $2 million to $3 million per flight is currently unimaginable," adding, "No one thinks this is possible, but we won’t break any laws of physics to achieve this goal." After the success of this fifth test launch, he emphasized on his platform X (formerly Twitter) that it represents "science fiction without fiction," and noted that "today marks a significant step toward becoming a multi-planetary species."

Musk currently has a long-term goal of relocating one million people to Mars by 2050. His vision is to initiate the colonization of Mars as part of humanity's transition to a "multi-planetary species." This is why he refers to Starship not just as a "spacecraft" but as a "spaceship," emphasizing its passenger-carrying capabilities.

"The booster is coming back."

"The booster is coming back."

"Elon Musk, is his legend just beginning?"