Will SpaceX attempt to catch a Starship booster with the tower in 2024?
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Resolution criteria
This question will resolve as Yes if, in calendar year 2024, SpaceX attempts to catch the first stage of Starship, the Super Heavy booster, with the tower.
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1,000
3.00In the last 10 seconds of this video, SpaceX essentially confirms they will attempt a tower catch of the booster on flight five.
Having closely followed spacex for a long time, I think they're not close to attempting this from an orbital launch - they've yet to get to test a controlled landing at sea. I imagine we might see ~5 launches during 2024, and only if they start working out succesfully all the way to controlled landing would risking stage-0 (the tower) start making sense.
A small hop into the tower could be viable, but afaik starship is not great at hovering and the landing/steering dynamics are sufficiently different that it doesn't make much sense to spend resources on.
[note: no direct research or reading others comments at the moment of writing]
Will they ultimately attempt this within 5 years? Heck yes ๐๐