How realistic is SpaceX's idea of catching the LARGEST rocket ever built?
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2024
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Mechazilla does more and more testing! But what exactly is it capable of? How does it move, and how precise will it have to be to catch a Super Heavy Booster? Is all this even doable? Let’s find out!
Editing: Stefanie Schlang
Photography: Kevin Randolph
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www.spacex.com/starship - Наука та технологія
What do you think? Will SpaceX have difficulty achieving the first successful catch, or will they get it right on the first try?
I foresee them rebuilding that platform and maybe the tower too, before they get it right.
They'll have a second of "hover" andor other things to make it more likely. And have enough fuel for the 'hovering' to turn into 'divert to crash away from expensive bits' also. The "Most fuel efficient" approach, and the **safest** approach are not the same things.
For spaceX to make an attempt to catch, surely they would have to be pretty confident of it being a success, with so much at risk I don’t think they would chance major damage to the pad.
So I think they will do it, perfectly!!
Go SpaceX 😁
Awesome video with great detail as always!
@@chopsu123 Even when they get it right Falcons still fail on occasion on landing so I would presume crashes even during the mature stages of the rocket.
The tower catch mechanism was stress tested anout 14 hrs ago ! spacex placed two 100 ton bags of water one on arm for a total of around 200 tons !
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.
Elon will not provide enough fuel for any hovering prior to landing. Guaranteed.
@@Chris.Davies for a routine launch definitely not, but I'm assuming they will for the first few
@@Chris.Davies in the everyday astronaut tour of boca chica elon said the falcon 9 lands with a literal tone of fuel left (not drone landing)
@@senurasenaratne5782 IIRC, when Elon said that, he was referring to the residual, or the fuel left in the tanks that's unusable. It's the rocket equivalent to how turning a glass of water upside-down doesn't actually get all the water out of it. There's some amount of fuel that is never able to be used, because it's either inaccessible, or because there's so little of it left that the engines aren't guaranteed to be getting nothing but liquid. Similarly, even if all the fuel is accessible, running to completion is a bad idea, because it runs the engines dry. To explain those last two points, rocket engines really hate when they suck gas instead of liquid. In fact, they hate it so much that they usually throw a fit and blow up. It's best not to risk this happening, so some fuel residual is a necessary evil.
I'm glad someone mentioned this. Much as the hoverlam manoeuvre looks dramatic and spectacular, I like more the hovering capability of bizo's phalic rocket. It gives the computers the much needed time to wiggle the thing and hit the bull's-eye
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!
We all appreciate Felix and hope he will be happy when he moves with his family to the United States to be even closer to the action.😁
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.
I think the tower will get destroyed anyway during early catching tests and they'll have to build a better tower. That tower is very much only the first prototype they have made.
I'm sure that they will have the tower fully shielded before the first full test but as Kenneth has said it's likely they expect the tower to be damaged and will have a contingency plan in place to enable rapid repair to enable continued use for research and development towards a final design.
@@thecrypticgamer833 good point but lot of work. I doubt it.
@@kennethkho7165 they're definitely not planning to get it destroyed. They've clearly said that building the gse is super hard. So they won't risk that
I totally agree with you, I just hope that the engeneers from SpaceX are aswell aware of this possibility and may work already on a secondary pair of chopsticks and maybe even a tower to be as quick with the replacement as possible to have the current momentum in development and testing going.
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!
Also important to note that unlike f9, super heavy will be able to hover rather than having to do a hoverslam. So there's a bit more flexibility to perform last second corrections before it reaches the tower.
@@micwallace Exactly. Using the Falcon 9's accuracy is a little misleading since it has too much thrust to hover on even one engine at minimum throttle. I agree that Super Heavy and Starship (second stage), should be able to be more accurate as they are expected to be able to hover when landing. They just can't hover too long as they want to use as little propellant as possible. Musk said that the goal is for 20 tons of propellant left, which most of it would likely be in the plumbing at that point.
Although the size makes it easier through slower inertial changes, hovering a SuperHeavy should be no more complex code-wise, then a DJI Phantom hovering in place, or one of BPS Space or Tom Barnard's drone projects.
Getting the mechanical parts to meet the requirements reliably is the harder part.
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.
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.
absolutely a win-win for entertainment value...I do wish for success for the sake of progress, though
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.
Thank you for your comment.
Do you think having musk as a head coordinator is the reason or the amount of incredibly clever ingeneers?
@@hynekchalus1 1. I feel like it's physically impossible to micro manage on the daily, all the projects that Musk has going on, so I put it onto the engineers and contractors as running the show and Musk acting more as "supervisor". Musk mentions often how Tesla and spaceX has some of the smartest engineering minds in the world.
2. But I don't think it's JUST the smartest, it's the coordination that impresses me. That means that not only are they smart, but they know how to work together incredibly well. Think about how many private construction projects go unfinished because there was a breakdown in communication between the contractors, subcontractors, electricians, civil engineers etc. I think there's something special going on here, you can feel it. Like every man, women and child coming together to manufacture stuff to help fight in world war 2. I think everyone involved in SpaceX is SUPER motivated by the cause, to get this done, and quick. lol.
Congrats on 200 Episodes Felix! It's been a pleasure watching your channel grow. Thanks for keeping me informed on all things space!
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.
SpaceX can bullseye a barge in the ocean after hundreds of miles of suborbital flight.
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!
Hi Felix & team,
Thanks for making the pandemic more bearable with excellent information
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.
Thank you so much! We'll move to Florida in March! Fingers crossed! 😉
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
That's a great explanation about the JWST mirrors. Lessons learned from Hubble.
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!
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.
The ideal amount of fuel remaining in the tanks is zero - because any excess fuel at landing is fuel you had to pay for - in fuel - to get all the way to stage separation and back, which is a total waste if you weren't going to use it. Sure there are safety margins, variations for wind, temperature, atmospheric density, etc. But ideally the fuel on landing is as close to zero as possible.
This makes me wonder about an abort, if they just blow it up or if they can burn excess fuel somehow, I guess if it's controlled they will burn it off with a hovering period.
@@anonydun82fgoog35 i think the realistically ideal amount is about 10s to a minute of one engine at full thrust. you dont want the Ship or booster to run out of Fuel (or choke on Fuel) a few meters above the Chopsticks because something didnt go like you calculated and lose Stage 0 and a Ship/Booster because of that
(Possible Failure cause could be for example excessive Fuel Burn because of a single engine Failure)
Booster needs additional fuel to hower before getting caught by the catch arms.
Hovering is not mandatory. The arms and ship just need to cooperate, reaching a *relative velocity near zero.*
Once the arms clasp and the hard-point pins are within a nominal distance above the arms, then the Raptor engines can cut off and the arms will slow to a stop.
The ship and arms could even be rising at MECO, or even have some small horizontal velocity. It is better to not restrict the software limits unless there is compelling reason.
Great video. Love the comparison with the barge landing area.
I think that drone shot was one of the best representations of how large Starship is and will be
Thanks for the video Felix, excellent as ever.
Another awesome one Felix! Many thanks and Happy New Year!
That idea is insane , even if they succeed in doing that , the likelihood of a failure is too high . Imagine the rocket coming too fast , or at the wrong position, it will hit the jaws of mechazila and explode
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.
We love you Felix! Thanks for all of your amazing efforts!
Three key points I am seeing regarding "Mechazilla":
1) Steering the booster back to Mechazilla with high accuracy (50% chance of success - since SpaceX had mastered it with falcon 9)
2) Perfect orientation of grid fins (strong points) as the booster approaches for a catch. (30% chance of success - mildly challenging)
3) Fast detection and accurate recovery of the booster by the chopsticks. (20-25% of success - very difficult IMO)
Thus, I give Mechazilla a 3-4% chance of success on the first few attempts. I will be impressed if it even nailed the first two points.
Overall, Great work by the SpaceX team for their awesome work and impressive work ethic!
Awesome was looking forward to this!
That's certainly a design they've got there... Well, I look forward to seeing the fireworks show.
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.
Outstanding video! Appreciate you including JWST.
Thank you for the deep dives, Felix!
Thank you, Felix. Brilliant work, as always.
From Episode 1 to 200, thanks WAI for each and every episode ❤️
Just incredible SpaceX. Outstanding video presentation. Tnx
Too many things can go wrong, Murphy is standing by!
First tests have to be slow because there are so many places where potential binding could occur. Verifying that won't happen is step 1, and then faster incrementally. Great video!
Great episode! Perfect! I’ve been following you for some years now, I love your channel, greetings from Norway, and godspeed both starship and JWST, YOU ROCK!
One thing to remember is that unlike Falcon 9, Starship and Superheavy will be able to throttle down enough to hover prior to landing, which is also the reason this catch method is even possible in the first place. That's one thing none of the CG examples do, but both vehicles will effectively reach 0 movement before the grabbers secure them. So the question becomes: how much remaining fuel does each vehicle need to have, in order to remain hovering long enough for the arms to swing into place? And that depends entirely on how fast they can be. Cuz if it's between 30 seconds and a minute, that's one thing. But if it's between 1 minute and 5 minutes? That I'd be worried about. That's a LOT of extra fuel.
Thank you for all the effort and time used making 200 episodes! On behalf of your fans, we appreciate your content!
I work on an oil rig and these cables 4:34 connected to the drawworks are going to get toasted and need to be replaced after every launch.. they have a special type of oil and lean fabric inside the coils that can't handle much heat
There is one additional consideration when comparing Falcon 9 booster landings to Starship ones. The latter must rotate to align their catch pins with the chopsticks. That's probably easy to do with the grid fins but worth pointing out.
Yeah I have not seen anyone talk about this. Those two pins don't give them very many degrees of freedom. I do wonder what it is. But I can see that being a failure at some point. Like one pin catches but they are rotated just a little to far and the other misses the rail.
Great video. Thanks!
Thanks for another amazing video!!
Congratulations on 200 episodes, Felix!!
Thanks for the Webb Telescope calibration explanation.
You're welcome! ❤️
Fantastic content..! SpaceX just keeps on dragging the future closer and closer..! JWST is a TRIUMPH ! Cant wait to see the first optical wavelength picture it produces..!
Good job on all your sessions
so many epeisodes good work felix
Catching the booster will work, it's catching starships that I'm worried about.
10:59 I like how in some of the promo videos they give the primary a "wobbly" sort of look in order to visually communicate that it's a reflective surface, when in fact there's just about no wobble whatsoever in that surface. :-)
Hi Felix, I was thinking, maybe there will be not only booster course corrections, but also chopsticks position corrections at the same time in order to make sure the succesful landing. Seems perfectly logical, don´t you think? Congrats for the good work!!!
Felix: I recall that the Falcon is programmed to land at a specific set of coordinates. And the barge must maintain station at those coordinates. So the accuracy of a Falcon landing is a function of both the rocket's and the barge's positioning capabilities. But the Boca Chica catch location isn't ever moving, which eliminates one uncertainty.
We are so lucky to live in this Era of Space Development
Wow great content, editing, sound. Boom
Great opening! Congrats! Great year coming!
There could be major carnage on the first attempt to catch the booster.
Another great episode. Thanks Felix :)
Here is a suggestion for SpaceX. Would it be useful to test the mechanisms to direct a Falcon 9 to land in the Mechazilla tower? The F9 would probably need modifications of catch points etc and maybe a temporary way to match the F9 legs to the orbital ring stand, but the info would be very useful feedback using a known landing system.
Felix would add to his preductions dressed as Warf. anytime talking about the Elon Musk hype circus is worthy of real costumes of real characters. good work!!
Space X has never gotten it right on the first try. I’m not expecting it this time either. Let’s just hope it doesn’t damage too much in this attempt.
They are not going to attempt to catch a booster until at least BN5 or 6
Agree. I'm expecting the first booster to be be slightly off, so it will probably bounce hard and then wobble between the two catching arms, probably damaging the catching points and perhaps bouncing on the grid-fins, but I do think it will be captured. Nevertheless, I think SpaceX will only need about 2-3 tries before getting it right.
@@karlkarlsson9126 that’s a very optimistic outcome! I tend to be slightly pessimistic though, I believe it won’t be able actually line up in a optimal orbital reentry in a way that keeps it lined up with the catching arms
I suspect that the booster will slam into the tower/chopsticks/or maybe the pad beneath the catching arms IF it even lines up accordingly
People tend to believe everything is linear in aerospace launches, when in reality it’s multifactorial (lower and upper atmospheric winds can cause a significant issue) (another problem in having a good relight of the raptors) (which is still a problem! Looking back on all the starships with the exception of number 10)
But again I wish the best for SPACEX 🤍🤍
@@eduardorodriguezvazquez5120 1) they have second generation of raptors
2) they are landing F9 very accurately each time for years now.
I would not expect any significant problems for catchings Super heavy
Starship gets longer, Felix's hair got shorter.
Well done Felix and team! Best episode ever 😉
In the future, Mechazilla will have X and Y movements, as well. Keep it up, SpaceX!!
Love the animations!!
Stefanie rocks!!!
I am really looking forward to seeing the Starship booster get caught by the chopsticks. I think it will be absolutely amazing to see. Great channel guys.
I think it's doable. I mean, we've already seen Astra launch a rocket moving sideways 😉. The real question is how does the arm align and rotate the booster properly before setting it down the OLP? The propellant inlets have to be aligned with the QD when the booster and starship is set down.
Excellent review!
Great episode!
A possible issue few talk about, it's the "lever effect", if the Booster lands hard on the tips of the catching arms. It's could rip off the pivot hinges, or the trolley arms.
Yeah I think it’ll hover briefly then fly itself in to the chop stick slowly rather than suicide diving in like a F9 does, for the reason you mention.
@@testpilotian3188 but hovering means more propellant spent. And a landing gear would make more sense.
@@testpilotian3188
Would be great to see some landing simulations. Too much stress on the catching arms or propellant tanks due to an harder landing, or them not being quick enough to close to catch the Booster, are some of the technical issues with this system.
I wish we could call the tower Mr Miagi.. Like when he caught the fly midair with his chopsticks in Karate Kid.
In the Falcon Heavy live feed, they broadcasted twice the same camera. You can see the white pad twice, it was corrected once they uploaded the footage.
Your words in this episod are brilliant!!!! shining
Interesting points to think about with the catch system.
Excellent stuff bro
What's really exciting is we will likely see the chopsticks stack both the booster and Starship on the launch pad, before a launch. Now that we are seeing them moving the stacking is probably the next major testing milestone.
Thank you, Felix!
I’m satisfied that the catching system will work. I’d feel a lot more confident if they were able to test the booster for flight accuracy before the first catch. I’ll bet they have that in mind for the sea landing coming up. There’s got to be a way to create a virtual landing pad with lasers and GPS to determine if the booster and Starship land within the margins of error. With all the months of work that have gone into the orbital launch mount and tower, I’m sure they won’t rush all that until they see impressive maneuvers by these brand new spacecraft. I’m also reminded that there is also the ability to hover a bit with these Raptor engines, so they don’t have to “bullseye” the landing like the Falcon9 boosters.
Love the opening!
The first catch will be as exciting as the first launch : )
I saw this one! Coyote's Acme rocket grabber worked fine but then the cliff collapsed!
Great content!
Excited to see Starships first 'trust fall'
Pause at 8:31,.... Felix, that's the original stream, not the re-uploaded one! Note the rocket exhaust in the top of the vision in both, indicating you're seeing the second booster from the first (if it was just a camera on the opposite side of a booster, the shoreline below would be reversed)
The broadcast had the camera from only one booster showing in both bottom boxes, the re-upload had that corrected, and can be spotted because the new lower box isn't perfectly over-laid (deliberate action by the editor, I think) and in the new vision on one camera, only one pad is ever visible.
Keep up the great work WAI!
Pretty good video! there was a failed launch several months ago where the rocket hovered and moved sideways before it lifted off. That erroneous liftoff will be instructive in the booster and rocket retrieval via this chopstick method.
Great job Felix
good video i rlly enjoyed it
I fear that the catch is going to be to difficult unless they can hover and maneuver bringing the buster to the right spot for the arm's to ketch it. As far as doing it right on the first try? Not so sure.
The production quality has been sssuuuupweeeeerereerrr high since day one. You can really see your background in media production
Great stuff
Plus, Felix you rock buddy!! Love this site! By far the best in my book😎👍👍
Thank you! :) Have a great day!
I think the asymmetrical position of the chopsticks (CS) in the catching position in relation to the tower floor plan and the asymmetrical one-sided lateral force introduction from the left into the tower should be an exciting moment. I still believe that the vertical speed of the CS when catching is within limits and is not that fast at all. I also believe that the chopsticks are in an active and permanently updated comparison and positioning dialog with the landing spacecraft. The problem is to make the spacecraft ready for capture in a defined limited sector. Felix, congratulations on 200 great episodes.
Thank you!
Great animations. 👍
This system of catching 9M diameter booster rockets coming down from the sky will be a complete and utter disaster.
While it certainly won't be easy, one thing to keep in mind is that currently the Falcon 9s land on a barge out at sea, that is probably in a different position each time. The OLIT's position is fixed and will be precisely known, so the booster's return trajectory can be refined as time goes by.
Good to see you again Felix😉
Fantastic job, Felix! I greatly look forward to each of your episodes, just as I do with the building of the Gigafactory in Austin, TX. What an absolute amazing time to be a STEM fan! Keep up the wonderful presentations, and don't be surprised if Elon has HR contact you. :)
Realistic is one of the most dream stopping words ever invented.
One critical point regarding Starship vs Falcon 9 1st stage landing capabilities that people forget. Falcon 9 booster is unable to hover due to thrust to weight ratio when booster is nearly empty. Starship will be able to hover, so in theory it can hover near the chopsticks and slide itself in to position for the final catch.
Congrats on 200 episodes! How about tower... Imo, it's gonna be Epic... Collapse.
Thank you!