Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote on X “Unbelievable” after watching the video Elon Musk shared about the robot arm catching a booster rocket on October 13.
The 122 m high Starship rocket was successfully launched by SpaceX in the 5th test from Starbase, Texas on October 13 (about 8:25 p.m. same time in Hanoi).
Google CEO Sundar Pichai congratulated Elon Musk on this achievement. He shared on X: “It’s amazing, I have to admit I’ve rewatched the video many times, it’s unbelievable!”.
The milestone was considered an “engineering feat,” drawing widespread attention and praise from the aerospace community and many other fields, including NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, according to India Times.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google. Image: India Times
This Starship launch system carries a historic mission when it brings the Super Heavy booster stage back to the launch pad with the “chopstick” robotic arm of the Mechazilla launch tower. After launch, the Super Heavy booster separated from the Starship at an altitude of about 70 km and began to return. Super Heavy restarted three of the Raptor’s 33 engines to reduce speed as it landed back on the launch pad. The 71-meter-tall booster fell into the launch tower’s arms, which were held in place by small bars protruding under the four front lattice wings.
Starship is a launch system with the ambition of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to bring humans to Mars for the first time. This is the tallest (120 m) and most powerful rocket ever built, capable of generating nearly 8,000 tons of thrust when launched.
The Starship rocket successfully launched and captured the Super Heavy booster stage. Video:Space
NASA chose the Starship to bring astronauts to the Moon in the Artemis program. When the Starship makes its journey to the Moon, it will have to stay in low-Earth orbit while SpaceX launches separate support vehicles to refuel the ship. The mission to carry astronauts to the Moon will take place as early as 2026.
SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk, a South African businessman. At age 30, Musk made his initial fortune by selling two of his successful companies: Zip2 for $307 million in 1999 and PayPal, which was acquired by eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002. Musk decided his next big project would be a space company.
Initially, Musk had the idea of sending a greenhouse called Mars Oasis to Mars. His goal is to stimulate public interest in exploration while also providing a scientific base on Mars. However, the costs were too high, and Musk instead founded an aerospace company called Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, now headquartered in Hawthorne, California.
He spent a third of his reported fortune, $100 million, to launch SpaceX. Many people were skeptical about his success, and this persisted in the early years of SpaceX.