All articles tagged with #mechazilla
SpaceX’s Starship stack delivers about 74.4 MN of thrust at liftoff from 33 Raptor 2 engines (roughly double Saturn V), but the real breakthrough is the plan to catch and refurbish the booster with the Mechazilla arms and fly the same hardware again within hours to days, potentially slashing per-flight costs and enabling frequent missions—though as of May 2026 boosters have not yet been reflown after a catch.
SpaceX scrubbed Starship Flight 12 (the v3 upgrade) moments before liftoff after a hydraulic pin on the Mechazilla tower failed to retract, triggering an overnight fix and a planned retry the following night. The v3 stack brings increased propellant capacity, a more powerful Raptor 3 engine, larger grid fins, improved heat shielding, and a refined fuel-transfer system to raise payload performance and enable higher flight rates toward missions such as Starlink deployments, NASA Artemis landings, and future crewed Mars flights. The page also includes related SpaceX and Tesla updates, including an IPO filing and FSD refinements.