SpaceX plans to catch Starship upper stage with 'chopsticks' in early 2025, Elon Musk says

Sep 20, 2020
61
12
4,535
Visit site
I understand why they want to use the chopsticks for Starship, but curious to know if anymore tests are in the works for the landing legs prior to this. So far they had one successful landing, thought they would attempt a few more for repeatability before moving to the next phase.
It seems SpaceX is giving priority to commercializing Starships rapid re-use - rather than the moon / Mars missions at the moment.
 
This and Axiom presenting a lunar excursion suit which is in pressure testing are nice pointers to an exciting future in space.

Both business ends of Booster got glowing hot though, the hot staging ring was shown as it was dropping by the booster after release. Else the top end seems no worse for wear. Not so the foot end, which was too eroded (and outer ring engine nozzles warped) for another mission. Perhaps they will have to resort to an additional engine burn on the way down, or else improve the foot end design, whichever needs less mass.

It seems SpaceX is giving priority to commercializing Starships rapid re-use - rather than the moon / Mars missions at the moment.
They need Booster [Starbooster!?] reuse because it takes much more resources including time to build them.

If, or rather when it looks like, they get that licked, the remaining basic functional tasks are Starship relight in orbit, refueling and Starship non-water landings (both legless for reuse such as in refueling tankers and legged for beyond Earth missions).

[Technically the Moon missions needs much more than that, but it is the minimal system needs.]

The first item, relight, is needed for both refueling and for, yes, commercialization of cargo missions. I'm sure they will try to put up the larger Starlink design with, or right after, the first relight mission. It is dual use, and NASA won't deny them that.
 
Last edited:

Latest posts