This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.
SpaceX has reached an important milestone in testing Starship, the spacecraft it wants to use for crewed missions to the Moon and Mars. Following a test launch yesterday, the Super Heavy booster that launches Starship returned to Earth and landed at its “Mechazilla” launch tower, succeeding in the first ever attempt at this maneuver. This success brings SpaceX a step closer to its ambition of making Starship a fully reusable spacefaring system.
After detaching from Starship post-launch and burning most of its fuel, the 70-meter-tall Super Heavy used 13 of its 33 engines for a controlled descent, before