SpaceX targets bold new 'catch' strategy for landing Super Heavy rockets
By Mike Wall 2 hours ago
Super Heavy apparently won't need landing legs.
SpaceX's Super Heavy rocket booster launches the Starship interplanetary spacecraft in this still from a SpaceX animation.
(Image: © SpaceX)
SpaceX plans to get even more ambitious with its pinpoint rocket landings.
Elon Musk's company routinely recovers and reuses the first stages of its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, bringing the boosters down for soft vertical landings about 9 minutes after liftoff on ground near the launch pad or on autonomous "drone ships" in the ocean.
These touchdowns are impressively precise. But SpaceX aims to achieve something truly mind-blowing with Starship, the next-generation system the company is developing to take people and payloads to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations.
"We’re going to try to catch the Super Heavy booster with the launch tower arm, using the grid fins to take the load," Musk said via Twitter on Dec. 30.
More:
https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-super-heavy-landing-plans?utm_source=notification
