A major milestone for SpaceX with the launch of the world's largest and most powerful rocket yet. The historic landing and catch bringing the company one step closer to carrying people to the moon and beyond. Here's ABC's Zareen Shah.
Tonight, the historic launch, SpaceX launching its fifth flight of the Starship rocket, dramatically catching the rocket's 20-story booster on its first try.
It's pretty much right ahead of us, and we can see it starting to come down. Oh, we can see it coming down through the plume.
Watch as the booster descends in the air with fire jutting from its base.
We got a gopher booster catch.
We can see those chopsticks happening.
Chiers erupting as it's caught by its so-called chopsticks on the launching pad.
It was almost like you're at an NFL game and the home team just scored a shutdown.
The historic breakthrough for the world's most powerful rocket now puts SpaceX one step closer to making Starship a completely reusable rocket, something no one has ever done before. Today's landing, a good sign for NASA, which has invested $4 billion in SpaceX to take astronauts back to the Moon for its Artemis program, where they hoped to explore the lunar South Pole.
Nasa sent out a mission deadline of September 2026 to get humans back to the Moon. And this Starship vehicle is a key component of that since Starship will be the thing that actually brings humans to the surface.
And SpaceX needs up to 18 launches to send cargo to the Moon before astronauts arrive. But today's launch, a step in the right direction, Rachel.
Yes, definitely one step closer. All right, Zerine, thank you.
SpaceX successfully launched the Starship rocket, the world's largest and most powerful rocket yet, which the company hopes will ...