SpaceX’s Starship rocket completes fifth test flight, lands booster in dramatic catch

SpaceX launched its fifth test flight of its Starship rocket on Sunday and made a dramatic first catch of the rocket's more than 20-story tall booster.

The achievement marks a major milestone toward SpaceX's goal of making Starship a fully reusable rocket system.

Elon Musk's company launched Starship at 8:25 a.m. ET from its Starbase facility near Brownsville, Texas. The rocket's "Super Heavy" booster returned to land on the arms of the company's launch tower nearly seven minutes after launch.

"Are you kidding me?" SpaceX communications manager Dan Huot said on the company's webcast.

"What we just saw, that looked like magic," Huot added.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson congratulated SpaceX in a post on social media.

"As we prepare to go back to the Moon under Artemis, continued testing will prepare us for the bold missions that lie ahead," Nelson wrote.

Starship separated and continued on to space, traveling halfway around the Earth before reentering the atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as intended to complete the test.

There were no people on board the fifth Starship flight. The company's leadership has said SpaceX expects to fly hundreds of Starship missions before the rocket launches with any crew.

The full Starship system has flown four spaceflight tests previously, with launches in April and November of last year, as well as this March and June. Each of the test flights have achieved more milestones than the last.

SpaceX emphasizes that it tries to build "on what we've learned from previous flights" in its approach to developing the massive rocket.

The Starship system is designed to be fully reusable and aims to become a new method of flying cargo and people beyond Earth. The rocket is also critical to NASA's