What actually happens during a SpaceX rocket launch
A SpaceX launch is over in minutes, but a lot is packed into them — and the most distinctive part happens after the rocket has done its job, when the booster turns around and flies itself home. Here's the whole sequence, step by step. Then you can fly the landing half yourself in LANDING BURN, free.
1. Liftoff
The engines light, hold-downs release, and the rocket climbs slowly at first, then faster as it burns fuel and gets lighter. It pitches over to start building the horizontal speed that orbit actually requires.
2. Max-Q
About a minute in comes max-Q — maximum dynamic pressure, where speed and still- thick air combine to stress the vehicle the most. Engines often throttle down briefly to ease through it.
3. Stage separation
The first stage burns out (MECO — main engine cutoff) and separates. From here the two halves go their separate ways: the upper stage ignites to push the payload the rest of the way to orbit, while the booster begins the journey home.
4. Boostback and re-entry
The booster flips engines-forward and fires a boostback burn to swing its landing point back toward the pad or a droneship, then falls through the atmosphere, steering on grid fins and surviving the heating engines-first.
5. The landing burn
Finally, a single late landing burn (the hoverslam) brakes the booster to zero speed exactly at the deck, the legs deploy, and it touches down to be reused. The Super Heavy version skips the legs and gets caught by the tower instead. (Curious what's next on the manifest? See Starship Flight 13.)
Fly the half that's hard
Getting to orbit is mostly raw power; bringing the booster back is finesse. LANDING BURN starts you right at stage separation and hands you the whole recovery — boostback, the tail-first glide, and the nerve-wracking final burn — free, in your browser, on desktop or phone.
FAQ
- How long does a SpaceX launch take?
- The ride to orbit is roughly eight to nine minutes; the booster's separate trip home wraps up even sooner, often landing six to eight minutes after liftoff.
- What does MECO mean?
- Main Engine Cutoff — when the first stage's engines shut down just before stage separation.
- Why does the booster come back instead of being dumped?
- So it can be reused, which is what makes SpaceX launches so much cheaper than expendable rockets.
- Where can I fly the landing?
- LANDING BURN — free, no download, on any browser.