SpaceX made history once again, particularly with the Starship's latest fifth test flight mission where it successfully reached orbit, returned to the planet, and had Mechazilla catch Super Heavy Booster on its first try. With all that being said, SpaceX is already looking at the future of Starship's involvement in cosmic missions, including a possible involvement in NASA's Artemis III mission.
While SpaceX will not be the main carrier of human astronauts on their journey to the Moon, the company and its Stainless Steel rocket will fulfill an important feat here which will require a hundred percent of its capabilities.
SpaceX's Starship Finds Historic Success in 5th Test
SpaceX shared its latest milestone which boasts of its first try in catching the Super Heavy Booster rocket using Mechazilla's hands which Elon Musk refers to as "chopsticks" in its fifth test flight. Before this, the company only shared video renders and posts detailing the catch procedure that would have Super Heavy conducting a controlled and targeted landing towards the towering arms standing tall on Boca Chica.
This milestone was accompanied by another accomplishment by SpaceX, with this fifth propulsion not seeing any problems in its launch, demonstrating Starship and Super Heavy's full stack climbing towards the skies.
Starship was seen soaring to Earth's orbit and then completing a re-entry burn where it conducted a flip maneuver and fired up its Raptor engines before its targeted splashdown on the Indian Ocean.
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Can SpaceX Assist the NASA Artemis III Mission?
With this success, many are already looking toward the future of Starship in this fast-paced space industry, and DigitalTrends reported that SpaceX's next possible mission is with NASA's Artemis III.
However, before SpaceX joins to assist NASA in the 2026 Artemis venture, it will need to further test itself in multiple missions to orbit that will fulfill contracts and prove that it is ready for a more grueling Moon mission.
SpaceX is set to bring the Starship Human Landing System (HLS) to dock to Orion and transport astronauts to the lunar surface and back to the module, as part of the Artemis III, the first time NASA's crew will step foot on the Moon.
Elon Musk's Starship for Deeper Explorations
SpaceX and Elon Musk have far-reaching plans for Starship which will help expand humanity to the deeper regions of space, designating its Stainless Steel rocket as the workhorse to make all of these possible. Its most ambitious and anticipated claim was delivering the first humans to Mars using its Starship rocket, and it is targeting this mission before the decade ends.
NASA also chose SpaceX to be its commercial partner in bringing astronauts to the lunar surface for the Artemis III mission that is slated for 2026, being the first landing mission that would end the United States' drought since the last Apollo venture. However, NASA previously feared that this may be delayed as SpaceX's Starship is not yet fully ready to take on the mission of safely landing humans from the Moon's orbit to its surface.
The Starship HLS will fulfill this mission for NASA and its only focus is to bring humans to the lunar surface and launch from there back to the Orion module after they conclude their Moon exploration. In this recent milestone by SpaceX, things are looking their way in the future of Starship and its upcoming operations, inching closer to assisting NASA and Artemis for the historic return.
