This critical next step toward rapid reusability could come within the next several flight tests, CEO Elon Musk said.
after months of failed attemps. Now, CEO Elon Musk has set his sights on the next big challenge: catching Starship’s upper stage with Mechazilla’s “chopstick” arms.the next opportunities to attempt this feat would likely be flights 13 through 15, depending on how well V3—the next iteration of Starship—performs.
The Starship launched Tuesday was a V2, which is slightly smaller and offers less payload capacity and thrust than the forthcoming V3. In another XThe Starship launch system consists of two main components: the ‘Super Heavy’ booster and an upper stage spacecraft called Starship. Both stages are designed for rapid reuse, meaning they need to return to Earth in one piece. That’s where Mechazilla comes in. This massive launch tower at Starbase, Texas is equipped with giant chopstick-like arms designed to catch Super Heavy and Starship during their separate descents. This approach is better suited to Starship than soft landing on a droneship or landing pad like the Falcon 9. Starship is much larger, so it would require extra-big landing legs and extensive landing infrastructure to do that. The chopstick catch eliminates those needs and thus reduces weight.on Flight 5 in October 2024, Flight 7 in January, and Flight 8 in March, but it has yet to attempt this with Starship. After the first successful booster catch, Muskhe hoped to catch Starship sometime in 2025, but the first half of the year didn’t exactly go as planned. AIf Musk is targeting Flight 13 for a first attempt of the Starship catch, that means SpaceX would need to launch Flights 11 and 12 within the next four months to pull this off in 2025. It’s not an impossibility, but it’s more likely that the first Starship catch will take place sometime in 2026. Still, Starship’s near-flawless performance during Flight 10 suggests SpaceX’s luck may be changing. The megarocket launched on time, followed by a smooth stage separation and booster landing—no catch attempt this time. Just over 18 minutes into the mission, it opened its bay doors and ejected payloads into space for the first time. That said, this megarocket still has a long way to go to get to Mars.Nvidia CEO Says AI Will Actually Make Us Busier in the FutureSatellite Companies Like SpaceX Are Ignoring Astronomers’ Calls to Save the Night SkyEuropeans are specifically not buying Teslas, creating another headache for a company that has seen its share price gyrate over the last 12 months.Grok’s Tips on How to Assassinate Elon Musk Are One More Red Flag for Wall Street Investors and businesses interested in the potential of Grok and its AI features are now distracted by growing fallout from an embarrassing data leak.SpaceX has returned to the winning column, with Starship Flight 10 going down about as well as the company could have hoped.Give Your AI a Face With a Genies Smart Avatar That Talks, Remembers, and EvolvesEric Trump Claims His Company Is Mining ‘3% of the World’s Bitcoin Every Single Day’
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