Skip to main content
October 13 (IFT-5) · 2024

Starship IFT-5 — Historic First Booster Catch by 'Chopsticks'

Historic for full reusability. The moment the largest rocket ever built was caught and proven reusable like an aircraft — the key enabler for operational Starship lunar/Mars missions, point-to-point Earth transport, and massive Starlink V3 capacity.

Starship Flight 5 — booster catch (official SpaceX footage)

The Super Heavy booster is successfully caught by the launch tower 'chopsticks' on the first attempt. A historic moment in reusable rocketry. IFT-5 (Oct 13, 2024) — first successful Super Heavy booster catch by 'chopstick' arms on launch tower (Mechazilla). Hot staging demonstrated, stage separation improvements, engine relights, controlled reentries in prior flights. Subsequent 2025+ flights: reused boosters, higher AoA descents, deterministic flip, payload deploy demos (mock Starlink), V3 iterations. By mid-2026: ~12 integrated flights, multiple catches achieved. Starbase, TX primary (OLP-1 tower).

Source: spacex.com

Story
Post story on X
Video
Post video on XOpen video

Read it in the full timeline

The story in depth

Independent educational fan project. Not affiliated with Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) or xAI Corp.