SpaceX Confirmed Starship Landing with Legs after Taking Over Falcon Droneship! Big Changes Coming…

We're tackling the burning question of the decade. Legs or no legs? That's been the question surrounding Starship for years, even though SpaceX has already released three versions of Starship completely legless. People still have high expectations for a version with legs, especially since it's crucial for certain specific missions. And it seems SpaceX is indeed aiming for this version in the near future, with several concrete steps recently taken. So what are those steps? Why is this the time for a version of Starship with legs to appear? Let's find out on today's episode of Great SpaceX. For those who watch movies, spacecraft have legs. In the aerospace industry, a rocket or spacecraft with legs seems completely normal. However, SpaceX took a different approach. They chose a legless design for Starship because they already have a giant terrifying support Catching a rocket out of the sky with giant mechanical chopsticks is a concept that sounds completely unhinged until you remember who's building it. Plus, a legless design reduces bulk, risk, and weight. It's basically the rocket equivalent of skipping leg day to save mass, allowing them to pack more cargo into the payload bay instead of hauling around dead weight. But skipping leg day is not always practical. For example, during the first landings on the moon and Mars, long before anyone builds a support tower out there, Starship will absolutely need legs to balance. Back here on Earth, if SpaceX wanted a landing method other than those giant mechazill arms, it would also need legs. One such alternative method is landing on a drone ship, a trick SpaceX has already mastered with the Falcon 9. This was actually outlined in their launch plan proposals at Starbase in Florida. And guess what? It has now become a reality. According to a recent update following the April 21st mission, the Just Read The Instructions Drone Ship, or JRTI, is officially hanging up its Falcon Booster catching hat. It'll stop supporting Falcon Booster landings and will instead support Starship booster landings. In fact, SpaceX had already made another conversion previously, switching the You'll Thank Me Later barge, which usually supports fuel tank transfer, to support booster landings. Now that everything is confirmed, we can all understand that Starship will need legs. Let's see. In theory, using the drone ship does not strictly require Starship to have legs. However, having legs is much more suitable. Starship will continue to land vertically to suit its design. By adding legs, SpaceX can minimize the necessary modifications to the drone ship, like installing complicated lifting devices or massive stabilization equipment. Therefore, adding legs remains a logical solution. Furthermore, adding legs would create a test version before SpaceX proceeds with daring landing attempts on the moon, Mars, and beyond, where there are no perfectly flat concrete pads waiting for them. The big question is, are these changes worth making? It's safe to say that landing on a drone ship always has massive potential. Firstly, it would be safer than landing at Starbase because the ocean acts as a super thick safety wall, preventing hazards should problems arise. It also keeps all that earth-shaking vibration and noise far away from populated areas. Your windows, your pets, and your morning coffee cups will definitely thank them for taking the noise offshore. Secondly, it ensures flexibility. A drone ship is essentially a giant mobile parking spot, allowing it to move around the ocean to pick up the vehicle. This makes navigating the landing much easier. Note that this does not mean landing a skyscraper on a floating barge is easy. It still requires an insane degree of precision, factoring in wind, waves, and a deck that is constantly shifting. So far, only SpaceX and Blue Origin have pulled off these kinds of nautical acrobatics. This brings us to a third advantage. With a mobile platform, the booster and ship will not need to burn so much fuel, flying all the way back to land. Instead, that fuel is optimized for propelling the vehicle further downrange. Overall, drone ships provide SpaceX with another landing solution, letting them flexibly choose the best option for missions with different requirements. And with another landing option, SpaceX can confidently launch more frequently. Think about it. Each launch tower has to support both launch and landing. If they only used the towers, rapid-fire launches would be a logistical nightmare. Imagine trying to park your car while someone else is actively trying to drive out of the same single-lane driveway. But with additional landing platforms like drone ships and specialized receiving towers in the works, SpaceX can juggle dozens of launch plans between Starbase and Florida. Drone ships would support continuous reflight capabilities, helping Starship achieve a massive breakthrough in launch numbers. Furthermore, offshore drone ship landings open up huge avenues for expanding Starship's global reach. SpaceX already tested the waters by landing a Falcon 9 on a drone ship in the Bahamas. This is entirely applicable to Starship. And don't forget SpaceX's wild Earth-to-Earth plan, where Starship operates like a commercial aircraft, zipping cargo and people anywhere on the globe in under an hour. Imagine boarding a rocket in New York and stepping out in Tokyo before you even have time to finish an in-flight movie. Drone ships would play a crucial role there, acting as offshore spaceports. SpaceX will obviously need a whole fleet of them, not just two or three. Of course, this approach has drawbacks. Travel time by sea makes Starship slightly less rapidly reusable compared to being instantly captured by Mechazilla arms at Starbase. It takes days to tow a barge back to port, but as mentioned, it is an option, complementing the Mechazilla catch to make the Starship system as flexible as possible. So do you think those advantages are worth SpaceX adding landing legs to Starship? Let me know with a yes or a no in the comments section down below. Then gently tap that like button and subscribe to our channel to continue following SpaceX's development journey. Adding legs to a rocket that was specifically designed not to have them is no easy task. It would significantly impact the aft section where all the complex engine plumbing, fuel tanks and piping are located. The rocket is essentially a giant flying thermos of explosive liquid, so carving out room for mechanical appendages is an engineering nightmare. The headache gets even worse if SpaceX chooses a foldable leg design to keep things aerodynamic and protect the legs during the blistering heat of re-entry. That means the landing legs would have to be recessed into the aft section, requiring SpaceX to totally rearrange the piping or even adjust the shape of the fuel tank. And speaking of legs, even foldable ones would need to be absolutely massive, way bigger than what we see on the Falcon 9. They have to support a towering, ridiculously heavy vehicle. Based on the Falcon booster's proportions, the ship's legs would likely be around 10 meters tall, while the booster would need 15 meter legs just to stay balanced. And those numbers might grow even larger for future versions like the V4. Plus, they need to be incredibly strong, built from ultra-durable materials to handle the impact of a landing that is a little less gentle than planned. In reality, SpaceX may have already designed these things, they will probably be very similar to the landing legs created for the Starship HLS. That lunar version hasn't debuted yet, but the parts are likely already manufactured. Creating this similarity lets SpaceX test the landing mechanism on Earth sooner, gathering precious data for those eventual Moon and Mars touchdowns. So if the rocket changes, what happens to the droneship? It's safe to assume the JRTI droneship and the YTML barge will undergo serious modifications soon. As mentioned, if Starship gets legs, the droneship won't need crazy structural redesigns. The main upgrade needed is durability. The droneship needs a massive increase in mass and deck strength to handle the insane weight and thrust of the ship and Super Heavy booster. Let's put this in perspective. A Falcon 9 booster weighs roughly 22-28 tons empty, maybe a little more with leftover fuel. The Super Heavy booster? Try 200-275 tons, making it about 10 times heavier. Even the upper stage ship weighs 85-120 tons, easily 4-5 times heavier than a Falcon 9. And then there's the thrust. We don't even need to list the exact numbers, just the sheer quantity is terrifying. The Raptor 3 engine is roughly 3.5 times more powerful than the Falcon 9's Merlin engine. A Falcon 9 booster lands using a single Merlin. Starship and Super Heavy will likely land using three monstrous Raptor 3 engines. That alone shows the absurd difference in power. It'll be like parking a school bus on a trampoline while aiming a blowtorch at the surface. Because of this, the Starship droneship must be much larger and heavier to create a stable platform. And don't forget the tugboat. The ship pulling this monstrosity also needs a serious horsepower upgrade to ensure the barge has enough speed and stability before and after the catch. After analyzing all of this, the million-dollar question is when we will actually see these droneship landings happen. Welp, SpaceX hasn't even launched the V3 version yet. Currently, their eyes are set on catching both the booster and ship using the Mechazilla arms, especially after those two beautiful soft splashes in the ocean. If flights 12 and 13 go perfectly, flight 14 might be the earliest attempt at a tower catch. In the short term, when flights are not super frequent, the Mechazilla catch will likely remain the main event because it allows for fast and full recovery. SpaceX already has the towers built and the upcoming Starships clearly don't have hidden legs. I predict we will see around 5-10 Mechazilla catches before SpaceX rolls out a droneship landing attempt. Given their launch cadence, late 2027 is probably the earliest we would see it. But this is SpaceX, so if they can crank up the launch rate, it could happen sooner. This buffer gives them time to modify the droneships and actually build a Starship with legs. By then, they'll have nailed the overall landing profile and can confidently try this brand new method. It can be said that the legs-or-no-legs story of Starship is no longer simply a design choice, but is gradually becoming a strategic transformation for SpaceX. Moving from a vehicle perfectly optimized for Mechazilla, Starship is evolving into a wildly flexible machine capable of adapting to completely different operational environments. The redeployment of JRTI and the focus on Moon, Mars, and Earth-to-Earth missions paint a very clear picture. SpaceX is prepping for a reality where Starship is no longer limited by fixed infrastructure. The ultimate highlight is the prospect of a Starship with landing legs. It seems to contradict their initial no-leg philosophy, but it opens up almost unlimited possibilities. With legs, Starship will not just land, but conquer any terrain from the rugged craters of the moon to floating platforms in the ocean. It's the crucial stepping stone toward truly interplanetary missions. At the same time, droneship landings are the missing puzzle piece for scaling up operations. It increases safety for populated areas and offers unprecedented flexibility, letting Starship be picked up anywhere at sea. Plus, it saves fuel, boosts mission efficiency, and is completely vital for achieving the high launch frequencies needed for a true space transport system. When you combine these two elements, a Starship with legs and massive ocean droneships, we are witnessing the foundation of an entirely new operational ecosystem. There are still huge engineering hurdles to clear, but all signs say this reality is closer than ever. And perhaps the question now is no longer should we add legs, but rather when will we witness the first time Starship successfully lands on the droneship in the middle of the ocean? Because when that happens, it'll be a historic technological milestone and the true beginning of Starship's era of incredibly flexible, far-reaching spaceflight. That brings us to the end of today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. As always, this has been Kevin from GreatSpaceX. Until next time, keep looking up!