SpaceX on Sunday successfully flew the first-stage booster of its Starship megarocket back to the launch pad after a test flight, a technical tour de force that furthers the company's quest for rapid reusability.
The "super heavy booster" had blasted off attached to the uncrewed Starship rocket minutes earlier, then made a picture-perfect controlled return to the same pad in Texas, where a pair of huge mechanical "chopsticks" reached out from the launch tower to bring the slowly descending booster to a halt, according to a livestream from Elon Musk's SpaceX company.
