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SpaceX is gearing up for world-first attempt to “catch” the largest rocket ever built with the “Mechazilla” launch tower, shared company founder Chief Engineer Elon Musk. The ambitious test, scheduled to occur in late-July, will be the fifth major flight of SpaceX’s Starship launch system.

Some of the ambitious objectives Starship achieved during the previous Flight 4 test include the first-ever Super Heavy booster ocean landing. Following stage separation, the booster completed a flip-maneuver and a boost-back burn toward the splashdown zone; It performed a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. This success gave SpaceX engineers the confidence to potentially attempt to “catch” the gigantic rocket for the upcoming Flight 5.

Super Heavy landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico pic.twitter.com/lnjCSk2Cz6

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 8, 2024

When stacked on top of each other, Starship and Super Heavy stand 397 feet tall, it is the biggest spacecraft in history. Soon after Super Heavy propels Starship to orbit, the 232 feet tall rocket will be caught by robotic arms integrated into the launch tower, nicknamed “Mechazilla,” which is a reference to the “Mechagodzilla” character from the “Godzilla” film franchise. Unlike SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which autonomously lands on a droneship at sea or on terra firma.

The “Mechazilla” tower will support the launch, integration, and capture of the Super Heavy booster. This innovative approach is set to mark a significant leap in reusable rocket technology because it has a rapid turnaround potential, Musk says that it will be a “big step forward” because, in the future, “reflight can be done in under an hour.” A rapid launch pace and reusability is necessary to make life multiplanetary.

“Catching the booster reduces mass from the launch vehicle, moves hardware complexity to the ground, and enables rapid reuse of the rocket,” the company says. The booster will return to the launch site after stage-separation, reignite its engines, and be caught by the tower’s arms before being restacked for its next flight, as shown in the video animation linked below.

How SpaceX plans to catch Super Heavy with the 'Mechazilla' launch tower pic.twitter.com/Lstj9N5OEO

— Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo (@JaneidyEve) June 25, 2024

Equipped with 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines, the rocket is capable of generating over 17 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, more than double that of NASA’s Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo astronauts to the lunar surface. NASA is now working with SpaceX to return humanity to the Moon after half a century. The company is developing a lunar-optimized version of Starship called Human Landing System (HLS) to launch Artemis astronauts to our closest celestial neighbor in 2026.

Looking ahead, SpaceX envisions a fleet of 1,000 Starships capable of transporting crew and cargo to Mars to build a self-sustaining settlement within the next 20 years. By “catching” Super Heavy in order to reuse, the company wouldn’t have to build 1,000 rockets to launch 1,000 Starships. Instead, it could launch one Starship after another by reusing available boosters. The goal is to create a rocket that can be as reusable as an airplane to make spaceflight more cost-effective.

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