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SpaceX Will Try to ‘Catch’ Giant Starship Rocket Shortly before Landing

The SpaceX Starship sits on a launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 12, 2024, ahead of the Starship Flight 5 test. (AFP)
The SpaceX Starship sits on a launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 12, 2024, ahead of the Starship Flight 5 test. (AFP)
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SpaceX Will Try to ‘Catch’ Giant Starship Rocket Shortly before Landing

The SpaceX Starship sits on a launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 12, 2024, ahead of the Starship Flight 5 test. (AFP)
The SpaceX Starship sits on a launch pad at Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, on October 12, 2024, ahead of the Starship Flight 5 test. (AFP)

SpaceX's next test flight of its Starship megarocket this Sunday could mark a world first: catching the returning first-stage booster using the launch tower's "chopstick" arms -- a crucial step in the company's quest for rapid reusability.

The launch window opens at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) from the company's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas. A live webcast will be carried on SpaceX's website and its X account.

During its last flight in June, SpaceX achieved its first successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean with the upper stage of Starship, a prototype spaceship that the company's founder Elon Musk hopes will one day carry humanity to Mars.

NASA is also keenly awaiting a modified version of Starship to act as a lander vehicle for crewed flights to the Moon under the Artemis program later this decade.

The primary objectives for Sunday's test, Starship's fifth, will be attempting "the first ever return to launch site and catch of the Super Heavy booster, and another Starship reentry and landing burn, aiming for an on-target splashdown of Starship in the Indian Ocean," SpaceX said in a statement.

The company added that its engineers have "spent years preparing and months testing for the booster catch attempt, with technicians pouring tens of thousands of hours into building the infrastructure to maximize our chances for success."

Teams will be monitoring to ensure "thousands" of criteria are met both on the vehicle and at the tower before any attempt to return the Super Heavy booster to the tower and "catch" it.

If these conditions aren't satisfied, the booster will be redirected for a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, as in previous tests.

But if things do go to plan, the returning booster will decelerate from supersonic speeds, generating audible sonic booms around the landing site, and the powerful "chopstick arms" will embrace it as it descends about seven minutes after launch.

- 'Fail fast, learn fast' -

The large mechanical arms, called "chopsticks" and even "Mechazilla" by Musk, have generated considerable excitement among space enthusiasts.

Starship stands 397 feet (121 meters) tall with both stages combined -- about 90 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.

Its Super Heavy booster, which is 233 feet tall, produces 16.7 million pounds (74.3 Meganewtons) of thrust, about twice as powerful as the Saturn V rockets used during the Apollo missions.

SpaceX's "fail fast, learn fast" strategy of rapid iterative testing, even when its rockets blow up spectacularly, has ultimately accelerated development and contributed to the company's success.

Founded only in 2002, it quickly leapfrogged aerospace industry giants and is now the world leader in orbital launches, besides providing the only US spaceship currently certified to carry astronauts.

It has also created the world's biggest internet satellite constellation -- invaluable in disaster and war zones.

But its founding vision of making humanity a multiplanetary species is increasingly at risk of being overshadowed by Musk's embrace of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his alignment with right-wing politics.

In recent weeks, the company has openly sparred with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over launch licensing and alleged violations, with Musk accusing the agency of overreach and calling for its chief, Michael Whitaker, to resign.

"He's trying to position himself for minimal regulatory interference with SpaceX once Donald Trump becomes president," said Mark Hass, a marketing expert and professor at Arizona State University. "But it's a calculated gamble if things go the other way."

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Cars, Chlamydia Threaten Australian Koalas

This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
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Cars, Chlamydia Threaten Australian Koalas

This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)

Clinging to a fluffy toy twice her size, orphaned koala joey Ajooni made a snuffling noise as she drank milk from a tiny syringe.

Weighing about the same as a mango, she was found by the side of a Sydney road where her mother was hit by a car and died.

It is a familiar tale for wildlife carer Emma Meadows, AFP reported.

Over the past two years, Meadows and other volunteers have recovered 40 koalas hit by cars in their neighborhood. The number left for dead is likely much higher.

Koalas are shy and notoriously difficult to count.

There are anywhere between 95,000 and 524,000 left in Australia, possibly down from millions before European settlement.

There is little doubt that expanding cities, land clearance and the spread of chlamydia are devastating the populations of one of Australia's most iconic animals.

East Coast koalas were officially listed as "endangered" by the Australian government in 2022.

"I actually, truly, believe we're heading towards extinction," said Meadows, a volunteer with WIRES.

"I don't know if there is any coming back from this. I'm scared it's too late."

Chlamydia was first observed in koalas about 50 years ago. In the decades since, it has wiped out entire local populations.

The bacteria leads to blindness, bladder infections, infertility, and death.

Although some chlamydia-free koala populations exist -- such as the area where Ajooni was found -- scientists fear these pockets may soon disappear.

- World's 'extinction capital' -

Annabelle Olsson, director of the University of Sydney Wildlife Health and Conservation Hospital, has regularly examined rescued koalas -- including seven-month-old Ajooni.

On the day AFP visited the center, a sedated three-year-old koala lay on an operation table, while Olsson and her team took the marsupial's blood, did X-rays and examined the koala's face.

The koala was chlamydia-free but had a head injury that impacted her reflexes and would require further attention.

Olsson said without better koala protections "our grandchildren, or at least their grandchildren, are going to see maybe koalas in a zoo if they're lucky.”

"Australia is an island nation with an incredibly high biodiversity and incredibly unique wildlife species and floral species that need to be preserved," she said.

Scientists believe Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world, with about 100 of the country's unique flora and fauna species wiped out in the last 123 years.

Environment minister Tanya Plibersek has said Australia is "the mammal extinction capital of the world. "

While there are some rules and guidelines to protect koala habitats, koala bushland continues to be cleared.

- Vaccine hopes -

Some have instead focused their conservation efforts on quelling the spread of koala chlamydia.

University of the Sunshine Coast researcher Samuel Phillips is part of a team working on a potential vaccine.

They have vaccinated and monitored 165 koalas over 10 years and found inoculated marsupials developed chlamydia later in life and their mortality was reduced by 64 percent.

A Queensland trial of the vaccination, used in conjunction with traffic and predator controls, was so successful that a local koala population doomed for extinction within 10 years rebounded.

Some marsupials will even need to be translocated to stop overpopulation, Phillips said.

"It's been a really positive story," he said.

However, Phillips warns that more needs to be done to address the other key drivers of koala decline, particularly the deforestation of their habitats.

"We can keep protecting these small populations, but without increasing the habitat and protecting it, then they won't be living."

- 'Make a difference' -

Ajooni will remain in Meadow's care until she is big enough to be released back into the wild.

It will be a "bittersweet" moment for Meadow, but she says seeing any koala successfully released is the best feeling.

That feeling is what keeps her going through the awful parts of her volunteer role: scraping dead koala bodies off the road in the middle of the night, or finding animals that are so severely injured that they need to be put down.

"I continue to do what I do because somebody needs to make a difference, and I feel that this is one way in the world that I can make a difference," Meadows said.