Witnessing hundreds of launches has solidified SpaceX’s rocket catch as an exhilarating new experience.

 **SpaceX’s Rocket Catch: A New Exciting Experience**


After witnessing many rocket launches, I found SpaceX’s recent rocket catch to be a thrilling event. For a moment, it felt like the rocket was heading straight toward me.

On October 13, I stood on an elevated platform about four miles away from the launch site in Boca Chica Beach, Texas. I watched in amazement as SpaceX’s huge Super Heavy rocket booster, nearly 20 stories tall, fell from the sky and was caught by giant mechanical arms at its launch pad. This method, according to SpaceX, is key to reusing rockets quickly, similar to how airlines turn around planes between flights. This plan is part of SpaceX’s goal, set by Elon Musk two decades ago, to create a colony on Mars.

While SpaceX's cameras captured the event more clearly than I could, I still have some favorite video clips of the catch. Shortly, SpaceX will regularly launch and land Super Heavy boosters and, eventually, the Starship upper stage that will go into orbit. This will help the company meet their launch schedule for NASA, which is paying SpaceX about $4 billion to develop a crewed version of Starship for lunar missions under the Artemis program.

To succeed, SpaceX needs to launch many Starship tankers over weeks or months to refuel the Moon-bound Starship lander while it’s in low-Earth orbit. Quick reuse is essential for the lunar lander system chosen by NASA for its first two Artemis missions. SpaceX is largely covering Starship’s development costs and says new versions will carry 200 metric tons to low-Earth orbit at a lower cost. This could create many new opportunities for the military and commercial sectors. 

The fifth full-scale test flight of SpaceX's next-generation Starship rocket lifted off from South Texas at sunrise. Thirty-three Raptor engines propelled the nearly 400-foot-tall Starship into the sky. I spent a lot of time watching the recent flight through my camera, but I know I’ll watch it many more times. SpaceX aims to make this catch a routine event, even more common than the landings of smaller Falcon 9 boosters, which happen several times a week.

Nine years ago, I watched from seven miles away as SpaceX successfully landed a Falcon 9 for the first time. This was the closest anyone outside the mission could see the Falcon 9 return to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, shortly after launching with commercial satellites. 

For safety reasons, NASA and the US Air Force restricted large areas of the spaceport for the flight. Journalists and special guests were kept far from the launch site, and the landing took place at night, resembling a launch in reverse as the Falcon 9 booster landed smoothly nearby. 

The Falcon 9 landing on December 21, 2015, came after several unsuccessful landings on SpaceX's drone ship. With the Super Heavy booster, SpaceX successfully caught it on the first attempt.

This catch method means the rocket doesn’t need landing legs like the Falcon 9. This design reduces the rocket's weight and complexity, helping SpaceX prepare it for flight more quickly and cheaply. I witnessed the first catch of SpaceX's Super Heavy booster last week from just outside the restricted area around Starbase. Local sheriff's deputies patrolled to keep people out of the no-go zone and set up roadblocks to turn away anyone unauthorized.

The launch happened early, so I arrived the night before at a viewing site run by Rocket Ranch, a campground for SpaceX fans. Other reporters and some SpaceX employees were also there.  Other places to view a Starship launch include condominiums and hotels on South Padre Island, about six miles from the launch pad, which offer great views of SpaceX's site on Boca Chica Beach.

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