Previously they successfully caught the booster returning to the launch site from ~100 km about ~10 minutes from launch.
Here they caught the upper stage ,called starhip, which went to ~260 km orbit, deployed 50 tons of satellites and after 22 hours shed its orbital velocity and manuevered to be caught with centimeter precision. :)
Oh nice, it's great to see each milestone along the way.
I suppose the challenges with this step are that after starship did its job, we expect it to be worse-for-wear, and so maybe less able to stably land? (But it did it!)
It's more a difference of speed. A less known fact is that rockets and orbital mechanics is more about going fast than it is going high.
The booster has a max speed of mach 5 before it returns to the tower. The upper stage which landed had a max speed of mach 25 which has to be shed off somehow without breaking the ship!
Here they caught the upper stage ,called starhip, which went to ~260 km orbit, deployed 50 tons of satellites and after 22 hours shed its orbital velocity and manuevered to be caught with centimeter precision. :)
I suppose the challenges with this step are that after starship did its job, we expect it to be worse-for-wear, and so maybe less able to stably land? (But it did it!)
The booster has a max speed of mach 5 before it returns to the tower. The upper stage which landed had a max speed of mach 25 which has to be shed off somehow without breaking the ship!