blockmemento

// block 865474 · space · 13 October 2024

A rocket booster caught by its tower

The moment this block marks: the liftoff of Starship Flight 5 from Starbase, 07:25 in Texas, 13 October 2024, 12:25:00 UTC. The first block mined after it is block 865,474, 13 October 2024, 12:25:52 UTC.

At 07:25 local time on 13 October 2024, SpaceX launched Starship for the fifth time from Starbase, its site in South Texas. The vehicle stood about 122 metres tall: a first stage called Super Heavy, with 33 engines, and an upper stage called Ship. On earlier flights the booster had come down in the sea. This time SpaceX meant to bring it back to the tower it had left and catch it in mid-air with two mechanical arms known as the chopsticks.

After separating from the Ship, the booster turned around, fired its engines to fly back towards the coast and lit them again about a kilometre above the ground to brake. It then slid sideways between the arms, and the tower closed on it. About seven minutes after liftoff, on the first attempt, the booster was held by the tower it had launched from. The Ship went on to space and came down in the Indian Ocean about an hour after launch, as planned.

Block 865,474 was mined 52 seconds after liftoff. At that moment the rocket was still climbing on all 33 booster engines, well over a minute before the stages separated, and the catch was still six minutes away. Its hash, like every hash, can be checked on any node.

make this poster see on the chain

Sources