SpaceX Is Ambitiously Planning the Landing of its Starship System

Feb, 2021 - By SMI

SpaceX is planning more ambitious missions which includes precise landing of the Starship by generating more advanced technologies.

SpaceX is routinely recovering and reusing the first stages of the Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 rockets by decreasing the booster systems, which will allow the rocket to have vertical soft landings. The rockets will land nine minutes after the liftoff on an autonomous drone ship in the ocean or on the ground near the launch pad.

The touchdowns are already very precise, but SpaceX is determined to achieve something more than "just precise" with its next-generation system, the Starship, which will be carrying payloads and people to Mars, the moon, and other far space destinations. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, announced on December 30, 2020, that the company is trying to design a launch tower arm that will catch the Super Heavy Booster while the grid fins will be baring the load. SpaceX is planning to bring the giant first stage, i.e. the Super Heavy, of the two-staged Starship system, down on the launch stand directly.

Musk has mentioned this ambitious plan before, but in he recently took to social media to bring several unknown facts to light, such as, the tower arms' ability to catch the Super Heavy. This makes the landing of Super Heavy very different from the Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 since the former does not need landing legs. Musk is affirmative that this strategy will offer several important benefits such as saving the mass expenditure on the legs, enabling immediate reposition of the booster on the launch pad, and making it ready for re-fly within an hour.

The upper stage of the Starship, which is a 165 feet tall spacecraft is also called the Starship. Both the Super Heavy and the Starship will be rapidly and completely reusable. Musk is aiming to make the Mars expedition and other ambitious deep space explorations very economical.