Elon Musk revealed Added Landing Legs for Starship for Moon Landing..Goodbye Mechazilla?

Elon Musk revealed Added Landing Legs for Starship for Moon Landing..Goodbye Mechazilla?
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Elon Musk revealed Added Landing Legs for Starship for Moon Landing..Goodbye Mechazilla?
Landing on the Moon is actually the easy part for SpaceX.
Elon Musk himself has admitted that the real challenge isn’t the landing, it’s building a rocket that’s fully reusable. And here’s the thing: Starship HLS, the version NASA will use for Artemis, isn’t designed to be reused. That makes a lunar mission surprisingly straightforward.
In fact, the biggest hurdle comes down to something that might sound simple, landing legs.
So, how do you build a system strong enough to support a vehicle weighing hundreds of tons and still set it down safely on the lunar surface? And could Starship HLS actually land on the Moon without traditional landing legs at all?
Let's find out on today’s episode of Alpha Tech.
Elon Musk revealed Added Landing Legs for Starship for Moon Landing..Goodbye Mechazilla?
Believe it or not, Elon Musk is aiming to put humans back on Mars within this decade. At Starbase, he and his team are working at a pace that’s nothing short of unbelievable, pushing forward with the development of the largest, most powerful, and most capable spacecraft ever built.
Just over a week ago, observers noticed something interesting: SpaceX has quietly started building a new Starship+ HLS test site at McGregor, the same facility where they produce and test Raptor engines. It looks very likely that they’re constructing a massive test tower.
This tower would use an enormous cable system to simulate the Moon’s lower gravity. Imagine HLS suspended on specialized cables, allowing engineers to trial its landing procedures: how the legs deploy, how the engines shut down at touchdown, and how all the guidance, navigation, and retro-thruster systems sync together.
And here’s the exciting part: building a facility like this strongly suggests that the first HLS prototype is on the horizon. If everything goes smoothly, we could see it unveiled as early as the end of this year, right on schedule for Artemis 3.
Elon Musk revealed Added Landing Legs for Starship for Moon Landing..Goodbye Mechazilla?
After completing the ground tests, SpaceX could move on to an uncrewed lunar demonstration flight with Starship HLS itself. After all, this is the vehicle that will carry two astronauts to the Moon in 2027. And when human lives, and the company’s reputation are on the line, there’s no room for shortcuts. Every system has to be tested thoroughly.
That said, there’s really no need to panic. Perfecting the HLS lander is actually far less complicated than building the orbital version of Starship meant to launch satellites. Elon Musk himself put it best: “Making a fully reusable orbital rocket of any design is one of the hardest engineering problems of all time. Much, much harder than going to the Moon.”
Yeah, Starship was always envisioned as the vehicle that could one day land humans on Mars. So if it’s capable of achieving that, then adapting it for the Moon is a no-brainer.
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