SpaceX's Mechazilla Is Even Crazier Than We Thought!

SpaceX's Mechazilla Is Even Crazier Than Ee Thought!

In the latest instalment of SpaceX's Starship launch tower saga, the company rolled a claw-like component to the pad and attached it to the tower's newly installed Starship 'quick disconnect' arm. The new Mechazilla grabbing arm will help SpaceX in achieving some of its most ambitious goals yet. This massive arm could allow for even faster rocket turnaround times, allowing SpaceX to launch Starship up to three times per day. How could Musk pull this off?

We answer these questions and more in today’s video! So get ready, strap yourselves in and join us as we take a deep dive into the all-new Mechazilla!

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is about to use some ‘robot chopsticks’ on his massive Starship rocket. Back in August, Elon Musk explained how the new Mechazilla orbital grabbing arm will help Starship. “SpaceX will try to catch largest ever flying object with robot chopsticks,” he posted on his Twitter page, along with a clip from 1984's The Karate Kid, showing stars Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita attempting to catch a fly with chopsticks. “Success is not guaranteed, but excitement is!” He added.

Basically the goal with the Mechazilla is to catch the ship and its Super Heavy booster as they make their way back to Earth. This method could be a step up from the drone ships currently used for Falcon 9 boosters returning to Earth after missions.

Designed with three primary goals in mind, Elon Musk has outfitted the Starship launch tower, a nearly 150 meter tall framework, with three massive arms that the CEO has informally nicknamed “Mechazilla.” The first of these arms is a relatively simple swinging structure with a giant claw-like appendage that has already been installed on the tower. Once a bit more plumbing is done and a few more parts are installed, that “quick disconnect arm” or QD arm will help stabilize and balance Super Heavy during Starship installation. The QD arm will also attach the giant reusable upper stage to power supplies and the pad’s tank farm while it's still on the ground.

But to be honest, the star of the show has always been a pair of even larger arms that SpaceX hopes will one day allow it to catch Starships and Super Heavy boosters out of the air.

But that’s not all! Those catcher arms, which SpaceX employees refer to as chopsticks, serve multiple purposes. SpaceX's Starbase launch site, which is located walking distance from the Gulf of Mexico on the South Texas coast, was always going to have to deal with extreme weather and high winds on a daily basis, which likely explains why they were ever considered in the first place. Furthermore, conditions that are already problematic at sea level become a near-constant nightmare. Why? Well, as you know, the Starship and Super Heavy are basically hollow cylinders with large surface areas that must be manipulated regularly 50 to 150 meters above the ground so the climate is not exactly ideal for vertical launch vehicle integration

SpaceX already has to regularly halt work involving boom lifts and cranes at Starbase. For Starbase to ever be able to handle frequent orbital Starship launches, let alone the hundreds per year Elon Musk has hinted at, cranes were never going to be a practical long-term solution for the all-weather capabilities and rapid reusability SpaceX requires. To put it another way, if SpaceX wants to ‘catch' the world's largest rocket booster and upper stage on a regular basis in the future, a tower with giant arms, or some other exotic crane-free solution, will be required at Starbase.

All of this is to say that the massive pair of arms on the Starship launch tower have a more immediate and guaranteed purpose: stacking, lifting and otherwise manipulating Super Heavy and Starship in almost any weather condition.

More recently, Musk gave us some sneak peeks on how the whole system might work.

Firstly, for lifting and catching, the booster will most likely use two pins. Musk said that “maybe it’s better to modify grid fins to take more load,” implying that the plans are still in the works. The ship would also sport "something" that could flip out from the leeward side. Musk added that “maybe it’s part of forward flaps, but probably not.” The booster will “slide” out to line up with the orbital launch pad, ready to fly again, thanks to tank treads on the arms.

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