Elon Musk's Starship booster captured in world first

Elon Musk’s Starship rocket has completed a world first after part of it was captured on its return to the launch pad.

The SpaceX vehicle's lower half manoeuvred back beside its launch tower where it was caught in a giant pair of mechanical arms, as part of its fifth test flight.

It brings SpaceX’s ambition of developing a fully reusable and rapidly deployable rocket a big step closer.

"A day for the history books," engineers at SpaceX declared as the booster landed safely.

Don't miss out on what's trending! Click the link https://feji.us/pm22tl to catch up, and help the channel grow by showing some love

The chances of the bottom part of the rocket, known as the Super Heavy booster, being caught so cleanly on the first attempt seemed slim.

Prior to the launch, the SpaceX team said it would not be surprised if the booster was instead directed to land in the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX can now point to some extraordinary achievements in the past two test flights. This comes only eighteen months after its inaugural flight, which saw the vehicle blown apart not long after launch.

SpaceX argues that these failures are also part of its development plan - to launch early in the expectation of failure so that it can collect as much data as possible and develop its systems quicker than its rivals.

The initial stages of the ascent of the fifth test were the same as the previous outing, with the Ship and booster separating two and three-quarter minutes after leaving the ground.

Don't miss out on what's trending! Click the link https://feji.us/pm22tl to catch up, and help the channel grow by showing some love

At this point the booster began to head back towards the launch site at Boca Chica in Texas.

With just two minutes to go till landing it was still not clear if the attempt would be made, as final checks were carried out by the team operating the tower.