Catch the Starship Upper Stage With ‘Chopsticks’

SpaceX eventually broke into a serious starship flutter on Tuesday, Acking the tenth flight of the rocket Failed Atemps a few months later. Now, CEO Elon Mask is looking at the next big challenge: Catching the top of the starship with the “chopstick” weapon of the CEO.

Wednesday, Aug 28, in an X post in Kasturi D The next opportunity to try this fame is probably V3 – Next Repetition of Starship – Depending on the performance, there will probably be 13 to 15 to 15 flights. The starship launched on Tuesday was a V2, which is somewhat smaller and less than the upcoming V3 provides payload capacity and thrust. The other x PostKasturi said he was hoping to make V3, to test and probably flown at the end of the year.

V3 flights depending on how good it goes

– Elon Kasturi (@Elonmask) August 27, 2025

Why catch instead of land?

The Starship launch system has two main elements: ‘Super Heavy’ booster and a high level spacecraft called Starship. Both levels are designed for rapid re -use, which means they need to return to Earth in a piece. That’s where the makers come.

This huge launch in the Texas Starbase is the tower decorated with a giant chopstick weapon designed to catch super heavy and starships during their separate landing. This method is more suitable for starships than soft landing on a dronship or landing pad like Falcon 9. Chopstick Catch removes those requirements and thus reduces weight.

Can SpaceX pull it in four months?

SpaceX is already Super heavy catch Flight 5 in October 2024, Flight 7 in January and Flight 8 in March, but it has not yet tried with the starship. First successful booster catches, after musk D He hoped to catch the starship in 2025, but the first half of the year did not go exactly as planned. Ay Explosive failure In the first half of the year, the launch of Starship delayed significantly.

If Kasturi Starship is targeting Flight 13 for the first attempt of catching the catch, it means that it is not impossible to launch 11 and 12 flights in the next four months to pull SpaceX in 2025, but it seems probably the first starsip catches in 2026.

Nevertheless, during the flight 10, the fate of SpaceX may change the Flolas performance near Starship. The megarket was launched on time, then a smooth stage separation and booster landing – no attempt to try this time. For more than 18 minutes of the mission, it opens its gulf door and opens the payload for the first time in space. It was said that this meger still has a long way to go to Mars.