SpaceX s New Starship Landing Strategy Shocked NASA and China
"SpaceX's New Starship Landing Strategy Shocked NASA and China.
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#techmap #techmaps #elonmusk #starshipspacex
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Intro 0:00
Inflatable and Crush-Core Legs 0:36
Let the Droneship Do the Work 1:35
Scaled-up Falcon 9 legs 2:24
Wider legs 3:50
SpaceX’s decision 6:42
A transitional strategy for Mars colonization 8:45
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SpaceX's New Starship Landing Strategy Shocked NASA and China.
Falcon 9 lands on a droneship using legs.
So the question everyone asks is simple: Can Starship do the same?
Can SpaceX just give Starship legs… and land it on a droneship like Falcon 9?
The short answer is: yes, in theory.
But every way to do it comes with brutal tradeoffs—and today, we’re going to walk through every possible leg-based landing method, one by one.
We also discuss whether drone ship landings with legs realistically scale as a solution to relieve traffic pressure on land-based sites?
First, start with an exotic solution: Inflatable and Crush-Core Legs
What if the legs are lighter than normal to avoid gaining too much weight?
We often hesitate to add new components for fear of gaining rocket's weight. So, engineers have proposed inflatable landing legs, composite crush-cores, or energy-absorbing structures similar to spacecraft landing systems.
These concepts can work, especially for one-time landers.
But Starship is not a one-time vehicle.
SpaceX's New Starship Landing Strategy Shocked NASA and China.
Inflatable or crush-core legs raise immediate concerns: durability under repeated use, saltwater exposure, reliability after long-duration flights, and consistency across hundreds of landings.
SpaceX generally avoids systems that are clever but fragile. If a component cannot survive rough handling, thermal cycling, and rapid reuse, it’s unlikely to make it into a production design.
There’s another idea that deserves serious consideration: shift the complexity off the vehicle and onto the ship.
In this scenario, Starship would have very short, minimal legs—almost stubs—while the droneship provides: recessed landing sockets, clamps or capture mechanisms, and active stabilization.
This reduces onboard mass and improves stability.
But it introduces a different requirement: extreme precision.
The vehicle must land within tight tolerances every time. Any off-nominal touchdown risks structural damage or a miss entirely. The droneship becomes highly specialized and Starship-specific.
At that point, you’ve essentially reinvented a capture system.
SpaceX's New Starship Landing Strategy Shocked NASA and China.
Next, Just Scale Up Falcon 9 legs.
The most intuitive approach is also the most misleading: take Falcon 9’s landing system and scale it up.
Falcon 9 uses four deployable legs that fold along the booster’s body during ascent and swing outward just before touchdown. They’re lightweight by rocket standards, mechanically simple, and proven across hundreds of landings.
Now imagine that system on Starship.
Starship is roughly nine meters wide and about fifty meters tall, dramatically wider and heavier than Falcon 9. Its dry mass target is around 100 to 120 metric tons, depending on the version.
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