SpaceX in its fifth Starship test flight on Sunday caught its returning giant booster back at the launch pad with mechanical arms.

The rocket’s first stage “Super Heavy” booster lifted off at 7:25 a.m. CT from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, launch facilities, sending the Starship second-stage rocket toward space before separating at an altitude of roughly 40 miles to begin its return to land—the most daring part of the test flight.

The Super Heavy booster re-lit three of its 33 Raptor engines to slow its speedy descent back to SpaceX’s launch site, as it targeted the launch pad and tower it had blasted off from. The tower, taller than the Statue of Liberty at over 400 feet, is fitted with two large metal arms at the top.

With its engines roaring, the 233-foot-tall Super Heavy booster fell into the launch tower’s enclosing arms, hooking itself in place by tiny, protruding bars under the four forward grid fins it had used to steer itself through the air.


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