According to CNET, SpaceX founder Elon Musk's ambitious vision for the next generation of starships is to reuse it quickly: launch it, recover the rocket booster and refurbish it, followed by another starship launch quickly. Part of that vision involves a rather insane project: a launch and capture tower.
On Sunday, Musk tweeted a video about the tower that simply read: "Starship launches and captures the tower." The 31-second video gives an intuitive look at the structure, which has a robotic arm that can be "captured" after the Falcon Heavy Booster completes its mission to "escort" the starship away from Earth.
The tower is located at SpaceX's Starbase facility in Texas and is currently under development, while SpaceX is working to get the Starship prototype into orbit for the first time. SpaceX is building Starship into a multi-purpose vehicle that can take humans to the moon and Mars, as well as as a vehicle between different locations on Earth.
Musk hopes to put Starship into orbit early this year and make up to 12 test flights in 2022.
SpaceX is still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to issue a launch license for a Starship on an orbiting mission to take off from Texas.
Musk refers to this capture robotic arm as the "Mechazilla." The tower was also designed to support launch activities. Chris Bergin, who NASAspaceflight.com, has been tracking the tower's tests and sharing its videos.
The prototype launch of Starship has both succeeded and failed, so the tower may also face some tense moments when it finally sees action. As Musk said on Twitter last year: "Success is not guaranteed, but exciting!" ”