If you thought landing a used rocket booster on a barge or a landing pad was
crazy idea, take a look at how SpaceX plans to land the big Starship rocket.
The same tower that will be used to launch the rocket will also attempt
“catching” the spent booster when it comes back to Earth.
Elon Musk shared a video on Twitter today, revealing the large structure,
which is under construction at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica,
Texas. The tower, nicknamed “Mechazilla” features mechanical arms, dubbed
“chopsticks,” that will be used to catch and hold the rocket’s booster. The
arms will then set down the booster after it delivers the second-stage into
orbit.
Starship launch & catch tower pic.twitter.com/5mLIQwwu0k
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2022
The testing process began last week. According to the site
Teslarati, on January 4th, SpaceX lifted, opened, and swung the tower’s
building-sized arms for the first time. Four days later, SpaceX performed a
variation on the first round of tests, again slowly lifting the assembly up
the side of the launch tower and opening and closing the arms. The second
test also tested the swinging motion of the arms.
SpaceX also performed some basic tests on a fueling arm located higher up on
the tower, swinging it slowly towards where Starship would be positioned for
launch.
Below is an animation created by @HoppAR on Twitter of how the arms will
work:
First #Starship Booster catching of year 2022! @elonmusk wen catch?#Starbase #SpaceX #Mechazilla #AR #HoppAR @SpaceX pic.twitter.com/MefjCveWZw
— HoppAR (@hoppar_app) January 9, 2022
We’ve been keeping an eye on the construction of the Mechazilla tower, which
stands about 122 meters (400 feet) tall. When will it be used for its first
official launch?
Last November, Musk hinted at a launch as early as this month (January
2022), but now it seems sometime during March is more likely. During an
online meeting of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board and Board on
Physics and Astronomy in November, Musk said that Starship could go through
“a dozen launches, maybe more,” in 2022 and be ready to send valuable
payloads to the Moon, Mars and even the Solar System’s outer planets by
2023.
Some sources say, however, that it unlikely the arms will be used in the
first attempt at an orbital Starship flight, as there is not time to test
all of its mechanisms sufficiently.
The tower will also prepare missions by stacking first stage boosters with
Starships and refueling these elements for the next launch. This means
Mechazilla is a crucial piece of the Orbital Launch Site (OLS) architecture
that Elon Musk has planned for Boca Chica. Once the Starship completes its
Orbital Flight Test, Starbase could become a spaceflight hub where launches
and retrievals are conducted regularly.
Back in August, Musk said on Twitter, “We’re going to try to catch the Super
Heavy Booster with the launch tower arm, using the grid fins to take the
load… Saves mass & cost of legs & enables immediate repositioning of
booster on to launch mount—ready to refly in under an hour.”
In 2021, SpaceX broke its own record by launching more than 30 rockets into
orbit in a single calendar year. They also broke their own record for
back-to-back launches after two separate missions using reusable Falcon 9
rockets took place within 15 hours of each other.
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