Booster catch

Recovering a returning rocket booster by grabbing it with arms on the launch tower instead of landing it on legs.

• SpaceX's tower arms, nicknamed 'chopsticks', first caught a Super Heavy booster in October 2024.
• Dropping landing legs saves weight, which turns directly into payload capacity.
• The booster comes back to the launch mount itself, so it could in principle be refuelled and relaunched within hours.
• It must hover into a small target at low speed; a miss could damage the tower, the site's only launch infrastructure.