Elon Musk recently shared footage of his Starship’s launch and catch tower. Tesla CEO shared a video made from a drone on his Twitter account.
Interestingly, this video gives SpaceX fans the first glimpse of the mighty launch tower that will reportedly catch the rocket as it returns back to Earth.
Elon Musk Shares Video of Starship’s Launch and Catch Tower
SpaceX Starships may be one of its riskiest projects. You must be thinking why is that so? Well, it is not because of going into outer space. Rather it is because of the cost involved in the entire project. Elon Musk openly told his employees must launch this mission commercially by 2022.
Starship launch & catch tower pic.twitter.com/5mLIQwwu0k
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 9, 2022
If successful, this project can make traveling to the moon a reality sooner. However, a failure of this entire dream plan can surely lead SpaceX into bankruptcy.
In order to launch rockets more frequently and at shorter intervals, SpaceX wants to apply a new design trick. Interestingly, this launch and catch tower shown in the video is crucial for it. Unlike the Falcon 9 rockets that the company is reusing by landing it back on Earth, the Starship’s Heavy Booster rocket has no landing legs, as per InterestingEngineering.
As a result of the absence of legs, the overall weight reduces. Furthermore, when we consider launching rockets, lesser weight load means lesser fuel requirement and lesser takeoff weight.
What does SpaceX plans to do here? Well, the first-stage booster rocket will be caught mid-air as it returns to the launch site. This, there will be no need for landing legs and it will be reused.
Furthermore, a second stage Starship can be launched in space within a very short time span once the booster rocket is refueled. Elon Musk thinks using this method, we can reduce turn around time to under one hour.
A Twitter user also, made an animation video of this launch last year.
Mechazilla <1 Hour Turnaround.#SpaceX #Starship @elonmusk pic.twitter.com/0hUWHj1BKe
— Erc X (@ErcXspace) August 13, 2021
However, the expected maiden launch in March might not use towers as the hands aren’t in place yet.
