Those were a few minutes that changed the history of the space industry forever. On Sunday, October 13, SpaceX accomplished a feat: after launching Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, into space, Elon Musk’s company managed to recover the first stage. The images, shared live on social networks, are impressive. A gigantic metal tube 70 m high, with immense flames escaping, can be seen coming at full speed towards the ground at a perilous angle, before finally stabilizing and being grabbed by gigantic arms in metal, designed specifically for this purpose.
This success confirms SpaceX’s technological advance over other global players in the space industry. By successfully catching up with the launchers, including that of the gigantic Starship, the company makes significant savings, and therefore drastically reduces the prices of putting satellites into orbit or resupplying space stations. More importantly: SpaceX is currently the only one capable of accomplishing such a feat.
China has not yet fully mastered this technology. Certainly, a private company recently managed to reland two rockets without damage during test flights. And others are planned for 2025 and 2026. But the most optimistic specialists estimate that it will take another five years for the country to succeed in manufacturing a viable reusable rocket. The most cautious even estimate the time needed to develop the equivalent of the SpaceX program in China at two decades. As for Russia, its Amur reusable launcher project is falling behind schedule: initially announced for 2026, it is now expected in 2028 or 2029, according to the head of Roscosmos.
The Old Continent is not much better off. Its flagship, the Ariane 6 rocket, was launched for the first time in July, almost four years late. So much so that the Galileo satellites, supposed to ensure European independence for GPS, had to be put into orbit in April by… SpaceX.
Ariane 6 is not reusable and was not designed to be one day. This capacity should only arrive with the next generation of rocket, ArianeNext, which will only succeed Ariane 6 during the 2030s. An eternity. More than ever, SpaceX is in the lead.