Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, says that Starship’s Super Heavy boosters can completely give up and instead rely on a wild crane-based solution to repair the world’s largest rocket stage.
As previously discussed on Teslarati, the Super Heavy Amplifier tasked with carrying a ~ 1400 ton (~ 300,000 lb) spacecraft about 25% of the orbit will be the largest rocket stage ever built – and with a large margin.
The Super Heavy Booster, which stands for almost as long as an entire Falcon 9 rocket in two phases at a point of 70 meters (230 feet) to tail, is the largest rocket stage ever built. Equipped with up to 28 birds of prey capable of producing more than ~ 7300 tons (~ 16.2 million lbf) of thrust at the lift, Super Heavy will also be the most powerful rocket ever built, representing Saturn V and SpaceX’s respectively own Falcon Heavy by a factor surpassed. of more than two and three. ”
Teslarati.com – 29 December 2020
Before today, December 30, SpaceX’s plan was to more or less repair Super Heavy boosters in a similar way to Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, to land them far down on an ocean platform or return to do so. to touch if possible. the launch pad. Since the first iteration of SpaceX’s Mars rocket was made public in 2016, SpaceX and CEO Elon Musk have also persisted in landing Super Heavy boosters directly on top of the launch pad after much refinement.
Repairing the launch pad requires unprecedented precision and accuracy and adds a new element of risk or a need for exceptionally sturdy cushions. However, the benefits would be just as great, eliminating the need for expensive recovery assets, time-consuming transportation and even the time it would take to crane Super Heavy boosters back onto the launch mountains from a roadside landing area.
Instead, Musk says SpaceX can do it literally capture Super heavy in the air, grab the booster before it can hit the ground by somehow inserting an extended “launch tower arm” under its steel grille fins. While such a solution may sound as complicated and risky as it gets, it will technically promote the need for any infrastructure for recovery enhancements – even with the legs that Super Heavy would otherwise require.
Save the mass and cost of the legs and get immediate replacement of the booster at the launch site – ready in less than an hour
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 30 December 2020
While this is true, Super Heavy will be trapped by its grid fins, likely requiring significant overhaul of control surfaces and the structures they attach – especially if Musk means the crane arm mechanism can be anywhere within 7 m (23 feet) of the deployed fins. vang) length. More importantly, it seems extremely unlikely that such a complicated and unproven recovery method could work reliably with the first or three attempts, implying that early amplifiers still require some sort of rudimentary landing feet.
In other words, just like landings mounted directly after launch, the repair of the air crane is likely not a feature expected to appear on Super Heavy v1.0.