SpaceX has successfully landed a Super Heavy booster after launching the fifth Starship flight

SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster successfully returned to the pad after lifting off to be held by the launch vehicle’s arms in a spectacular performance on Sunday morning. The milestone occurred during the company’s fifth Starship flight, and is a major step in the rocket’s redesign. The Starship launched at approximately 8:25AM ET from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas Starbase.

Landing rockets are nothing new for SpaceX, which has been using its workhorse Falcon 9 for years now, but the company took a completely different approach to relaunching the Super Heavy. While the Falcon 9 used to land on a drone ship at sea, the Super Heavy returned to its launch pad and had to enter the open space between the towers’ extended “sticks”. This move risked destroying the tower if the Super Heavy did not remove it properly. It did, however, and live videos of the test flight showed the booster parking itself neatly back into the tower to signal to everyone watching in the observation room.

The Starship, meanwhile, continued to fly for about an hour after separating from the booster and splashed down in the Indian Ocean as planned around 9:30AM ET. The entire Starship transport system, including the Super Heavy first stage and the Starship second stage, is designed to be reusable.