SpaceX’s Starship soared into the sky and returned to Earth with a booster SpaceX chopstick catch in South Texas. This wasn’t just another launch; it was a leap into uncharted territory. SpaceX’s giant metal arms successfully catch-landed the Starship booster. This achievement is crucial to potentially ferrying humans to space. The Starship blasted off from the Boca Chica Starbase in Texas, and at around 65 km above Earth, the Super Heavy booster separated from the rocket. However, instead of plummeting back to Earth, it made a picture-perfect, controlled return to the same pad in Texas.
On October 13, 2024, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its fifth Starship test flight. The Starship’s “Super Heavy booster” lifted off from SpaceX’s facility. The booster began its descent to Earth from an altitude of 70 km and approached the SpaceX launch tower in Texas. The launch tower, fitted with two large metal arms, successfully caught the 71-meter-tall booster as it descended.
Elon Musk Tweets on 5th Starship Launch
February 6, 2018 – Kennedy Space Center, Florida
First Launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy
SpaceX intends to build a more powerful rocket than Falcon. Heavy that could eventually send humans to Mars and beyond.
SpaceX Chopstick Catch: Push For Reusable Rockets
SpaceX made history with the completion of its fifth Starship launch. Boosters typically launch rockets, separating from the main rocket at a certain altitude and then either falling back to Earth or burning up. However, this wasn’t the case with SpaceX’s booster. Instead, it performed a controlled descent, landing into the arms of two huge mechanical “chopsticks.” In other words, SpaceX successfully caught its booster.
Why is this Historic & Why Reusable Rockets could be the Future?
It saves a lot of time and money, as they won’t have to build a new one to launch the next rocket. The heart of this plan is “Mechazilla,” a 400-foot-tall titan of technology. Its mission: to catch the descending booster mid-air using two mechanical arms, aptly named “chopsticks.” The moment is incredibly critical—the chopsticks must reach out with perfect timing to snatch the falling booster from the sky. This daring maneuver is unlike anything ever attempted, and social media couldn’t get enough of it.
Boosters play a crucial role in launching rockets. Engineers usually attach them to the sides and power them with solid fuel, allowing for rapid burning. Boosters provide the rocket with the thrust it needs to take off. Once they’ve done their job, they separate from the main rocket. Most traditional rockets use expendable boosters that fall into the ocean or a designated area, where they typically get destroyed on impact. While there are some reusable boosters, they still fall onto floating platforms or designated landing pads. However, SpaceX’s feat was entirely different. Catching the booster mid-air saves a lot of effort and resources.
- You don’t need complicated machinery on ground .
- It saves a lot of time & money
The main goal is to make the rocket reusable. If the booster is caught, it can be redeployed in the future, saving the cost of developing a new one. This also reduces the time between launches from months to just days, paving the way for a future where rockets don’t just fly—they return, ready to fly again.
How SpaceX Will Catch Super Heavy
SpaceX is currently developing its Starship rocket, with test flights being conducted from Starbase in South Texas. The first-stage booster, called “Super Heavy,” is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. Further, expanding on the reuse of capabilities achieved with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. Designing a rapidly reusable spacecraft is a complex engineering problem that involves balancing many design tradeoffs as SpaceX has iterated on the design.
In pursuit of improved efficiency, some parts have been removed, most notably the landing legs on the Super Heavy booster. You might wonder how they plan to reuse the booster without landing legs. Well, SpaceX intends to catch the largest rocket booster ever built using mechanical arms attached to a tower they’ve named ‘Mechazilla’ after it returns to the launch site. It sounds like science fiction, but this is exactly what SpaceX plans to do on the fifth test flight of the Starship.
Since SpaceX proposed the idea of catching the Super Heavy booster, many have criticized it as impossible, similar to the initial skepticism surrounding Falcon 9 booster reuse, which has now become routine over the past five years. I’ve followed the development of the Starship program from its early welding prototypes to the impressive infrastructure we see today.
Design Process
The ‘Mechazilla’ launch tower and the Super Heavy booster incorporate the catching process. I will explain how these systems operate, the limitations and risks involved, and then follow up with a detailed description of how I expect the catch procedure to occur, using all the information presented in this article.
So far, SpaceX has only used the Mechazilla arms to slowly lift and move Starships and Super Heavy boosters onto the orbital launch mount for testing and launches. Catching a booster, however, will require the arms to move much faster than they do for stacking. SpaceX has upgraded both of the large pistons that control the arms to increase their speed, but this has come with some trade-offs. 100-ton arms have significant inertia when moved quickly, which results in a noticeable amount of sway when coming to a stop.
The hydraulic systems responsible for moving the arms at speed sometimes pulse, and the combination of these factors could make stopping the arms at a precise position for catching difficult. Keep this in mind, as it will be important later.
Catch Arm Systems
The SpaceX chopstick catch arms system consists of two main components: the catch arms and the carriage that mounts them. This setup enables the arms to move up and down the tower. The carriage wraps around the tower and attaches with 12 skates. These skates are separated into three pairs on both the top and bottom frames of the carriage.
These skates contain an array of linear bearings that ride along the rails located on opposite sides of three of the tower’s structural columns. Together, all 12 skates act like wheels on a roller coaster, constraining the carriage in motion along the length of the tower. Hardware mounted to the frame of the carriage includes a hydraulic system and electronics responsible for controlling the large pistons that move the catch arms back and forth, as well as actuating the smaller hydraulic systems on each arm.
