How realistic is SpaceX's idea of catching the LARGEST rocket ever built?

What do you think? Will SpaceX have difficulty achieving the first successful catch, or will they get it right on the first try? :_WAISweet:

Something I think is important to keep in mind is the fact Starship and Superheavy have hovering capabilities while Falcon did not. A single Merlin engine at its lowest level of thrust at about 40% (someone fact check me on this) still gives Falcon such a high TWR that it’s not capable of hovering. Therefore Falcon needs to perform a “hoverslam” maneuver when it lands where the two factors to worry about is velocity and accuracy. Starship and Superheavy however, with their Raptor engines and substantial weight gain can achieve TWR of around 1 making the two stages capable of hovering and allow even more accurate landings as they can fine-tune their approach unlike the Falcon which has to slam on the breaks at the last second. The only factor to worry about is accuracy in this case.

Ep.200 I can remember the early episodes where it was just Felix on his own making videos for no other reason but that he wanted to spread the word of something truely special. Congratulations on the milestone, and keep it up!

I think you've made a good case that the Booster and Starship can be caught. All I can add is that if there IS a crash, it won't be a concrete landing pad that gets blasted with heat and fuel and rocket parts, it will be a very complex and expensive tower. Since there's a decent chance one of the first catch attempts will be unsuccessful, I hope Mechazilla doesn't sustain too much damage.

Cool overlay of the Starship landing area with the drone ship. I was wondering how much margin they had, and now I have a good sense of it. Thanks!

Congrats on 200 Episodes Felix! It's been a pleasure watching your channel grow. Thanks for keeping me informed on all things space!

I'm betting that there will be at least one major incident involving either the rocket bumping into the tower structure, or tank rupture from the stresses of capture.

Arguably, the booster will need more precision that Mechazilla, not the other way around. We will soon see a full speed test of the arms, until then we can’t say. I don’t expect the arms to just drop to catch the booster. I think they might add some kind of resistance on the way down. Right now they are loading huge bags onto the arms to simulate mass of the booster.

They’re going to have to tear down and completely rebuild Mechazilla when the first booster misses and explodes tearing everything in the area up. Most likely taking out the tank farm too. This is going to be very exciting to watch.

thanks for all the awesome info! anyway, for the life of me, I cannot wrap my mind around how fast spaceX moves in building all this stuff. I don't understand how you can have that level of co-ordination. I work in the design field, with CAD, on various projects, sometimes in teams, and even on small projects, R&D and getting to prototype stage is a super tedious and time consuming process. These guys are working with MASSIVE structures, incredibly complex designs with a staggering number of different specializations, and they make it look like they're pumping out hot cakes by the dozen. It's amazing but also absolutely mind boggling.

I think the precision and speed required of the catching arms will depend a lot on the manoeuvrability and hovering ability of Superheavy and Starship. Falcon 9 is not able to hover and therefore has to perform a "suicide burn", where it fires its centre engine aiming to be at zero velocity when it is at zero altitude. I understand that Raptor has a greater throttle range than Merlin, which should allow Superheavy and Starship to hover, which should mean that the speed of the catching arms is less critical. One important aspect that they will need to get right is the rotational orientation of Superheavy and Starship, since the catching arms won't work if the catching pins are not correctly orientated with respect to the arms.

Didn't even notice it has been 200 episodes already thank you for all the hard work!

Episode 50? Wow! I’ve been with you since maybe 3/4 or more of that and proud to Patreon. I think I’ve brought you many new viewers along the way. Hoping for a soon/come meet and greet along the Gulf Coast.

Hi Felix & team, Thanks for making the pandemic more bearable with excellent information

That's a great explanation about the JWST mirrors. Lessons learned from Hubble.

Greetings from ITALY! Despite my level of English is not so high, the way Felix speaks is perfect and allows me understand at least the 90%! And with the subtitles that are often present, I reach the 100%. Go on this way, please, Felix. You are great! Fabio

The factor determining chopstick closing speed will be the how much fuel remains in the tanks. It needs to hover long enough for the chopsticks to close in enough to catch. However, one advantage is that the less fuel in the super heavy, the less stress on the chopsticks when the weight is finally fully transferred. SpaceX can afford to burn fuel to empty if it means the chopsticks are in place. Catching a starship with a super heavy on the launch stand will be the pinnacle of their skills.

At this moment I'm convinced that the most important factor is the alignment of the pins with the chopsticks rails. The capability of hovering will allow to be caught softly. If not aligned properly they will need catch it on the grid fins. So the correct rotation has to be perfect or risk an RUD.

Much 'easier' than the drone ship landing I would imagine, as it will be only one moving element, not two. They have been testing in much more difficult landing windows with wind speed, wave height, etc, but there is always going to be the sea impacting the drone ship's positioning. With the landing element static, it should dramatically improve accuracy.

Felix.... You left our your signature YOU ROCK! That phrase is epic and I enjoy hearing you remind your community how you feel. You Rock!