SpaceX’s latest flight planned for Friday will mark the first attempt to catch the Starship spacecraft at its South Texas launch site upon its return to Earth.
If successful, the “double catch” of the Starship upper-stage spacecraft and the booster, known as Super Heavy, would be a critical step in Elon Musk’s plans to create a fully reusable rocket system.
The 407-foot-tall Starship rocket is scheduled to launch at 5:45 p.m. EST from SpaceX’s Starbase launch facilities, about 20 miles west of Brownsville, Texas.
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The booster’s primary objective on Flight 15 will be executing a successful launch before returning to the launch site.
SpaceX has caught three rocket boosters out of mid-air using a giant launch- -and-catch tower nicknamed “Mechazilla.” It is equipped with large mechanical arms called “chopsticks.”
If everything goes as planned, Super Heavy will return to Starbase within about seven minutes, where it will be grabbed out of the air by the “chopsticks.”
Starship will then continue into low Earth orbit, where it will deploy more than two dozen of SpaceX’s Starlink V3 satellites.
“After deploying from Starship, the Starlink V3 satellites will unfold their antennas and deploy their solar arrays and make initial contact with the ground and the rest of the Starlink constellation via radio frequency and laser links,” SpaceX said in a statement. “The satellites will then begin raising their orbits with their onboard thrusters.”
The latest batch of Starlink satellites should begin serving customers within a few weeks after launch. Starship is expected to circle the world 15 times before returning to the Starbase launch site on Saturday, the company said.
“Starship will only execute a return to the launch site if the flight control team has ensured that the vehicle systems critical for reentry maneuvers and final landing burn and tower approach are healthy,” SpaceX officials said.
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