US space company SpaceX successfully executed an unprecedented achievement on Sunday. For the first time, a launch rocket (booster) successfully returned to its launch pad, after separating from the second stage. Not only that, but the booster was successfully seized by metal arms mounted on the launch tower, so that it did not touch the ground, thereby eliminating the risk of a hard landing.

The booster concerned was the company’s new Super Heavy, the most powerful rocket ever developed. It is intended to launch the company’s equally new crewed spacecraft, the Starship, and other very heavy payloads, to make possible the human colonisation of the Moon and perhaps even Mars.

"This is a day for the engineering history books," enthused SpaceX quality systems engineering manager Kate Tice. "This is absolutely insane! On the first-ever attempt, we have successfully caught the Super Heavy booster back at the launch tower."

This was effectively the climax of what appears to have been a very successful fifth flight test of the complete Starship system. Flown yesterday from the company’s facility at Boca Chica in the US state of Texas, this saw the company’s Super Heavy booster lift an uncrewed Starship vehicle into space.

As planned, the Starship did not enter orbit. It achieved a peak altitude of 212 km before re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Fitted with an improved heatshield, it performed better during re-entry than the Starship vehicle on the previous test flight did.

After re-entry, and as planned, the Starship adopted a horizontal flight profile (which will later be required for proper landings) and then pitched up vertically, before “splashing down” in the Indian Ocean, under power, again as (and where) planned, and exploding several seconds later. SpaceX has no plans to retrieve this particular vehicle.

Super Heavy and Starship are key elements in the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Artemis programme for renewed human exploration of the Moon. A version of the Starship will be used to carry astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface and back.

"Congratulations to SpaceX on its successful booster catch and fifth Starship flight test [Sunday]!” affirmed NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, on social media. “Continued testing will prepare us for the bold missions that lie ahead, including to the south pole region of the Moon and then on to Mars.”