SpaceX was able to successfully catch its returning Starship rocket at the end of its most recent flight.
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Conway Gittens: It’s going to be a busy week filled with earnings and economic data, so investors are moving cautiously on this Monday. The Dow is a laggard thanks to Boeing. Shares of the airplane maker are down after it announced it will slash 17,000 jobs and further delay production of the 777X. Boeing is looking for ways to save money as it hemorrhages from a workers’ strike.
In other news – it’s another historic first for Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The company was able to use gigantic arms attached to its launch tower to catch a rocket booster as it returned to earth. The massive rocket booster was used to propel SpaceX’s Starship rocket into orbit for its fifth unmanned test flight.
This dramatic feat brings SpaceX once step closer to a reusable rocket booster operation that would lower the cost of space travel. There were celebrations all around as the massive 20-story booster successfully returned to the launch pad within seven minutes of the launch.
NASA is partnering with SpaceX on developing Starship to be the vehicle of choice for NASA’s Artemis moon landing program. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson heaped praise on SpaceX. “As we prepare to go back to the Moon under Artemis, continued testing will prepare us for the bold missions that lie ahead.”
SpaceX said it will use data from all five test flights to improve systems and will continue to push boundaries in hundreds of future test flights in order to ensure the safety of space transportation. Musk’s eventual goal is to make the SpaceX Starship a fully reusable fleet of spacecrafts that can fly people and objects into space.
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