SpaceX's new Brilliant Solution on Starship Landing Legs: Falcon 9 Legs

SpaceX's new Brilliant Solution on Starship Landing Legs: Falcon 9 Legs
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#spacezone #spacex #space #starship #spacexstarship
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SpaceX's new Brilliant Solution on Starship Landing Legs: Falcon 9 Legs
This is the recent SpaceX renders of Starship on Mars, you might notice something interesting. The landing legs look a lot like the ones on Falcon 9. Is that just a coincidence? But if not, why would SpaceX choose that design, and how well would that kind of design actually work on the Martian surface?
Well, It turns out the Falcon 9 landing legs have been a major source of inspiration for how SpaceX is designing the landing legs for Starship.
Back on August 5, 2020, Elon Musk responded to a question about Starship’s landing legs, saying, “V1.1 legs will be ~60% longer. V2.0 legs will be much wider and taller, like Falcon, but capable of landing on unimproved surfaces and auto-leveling.” In other words, while Starship’s legs share some basic concepts with Falcon 9’s, they are being designed to handle much more. They need to be tougher and more adaptable, especially for landing on rough and uneven terrain like that found on the Moon or Mars.
SpaceX's new Brilliant Solution on Starship Landing Legs: Falcon 9 Legs
So first, to get an idea of what the Starship landing legs might be like, let’s take a look at how the Falcon 9 legs work. The Falcon 9 landing legs are a vital part of what makes the rocket partially reusable, combining clever engineering with robust functionality. While they may look straightforward, they consist of four key components that work together seamlessly: the deployment arms, the legs, the pushers, and the latches.
The deployment arms are telescopic tubes made of nested hollow cylinders that remain collapsed during launch. When it’s time to land, these arms are extended using pressurized helium, gradually pushing outward to lower the legs into place. This design might seem familiar. It’s the same concept used in old pirate telescopes and monoculars, which is why it's called a “telescopic” mechanism. Beyond compact storage, this design allows the arms to act as shock absorbers. Much like a car’s suspension system, they can briefly compress during landing, softening the impact when the rocket hits the ground. If the landing force exceeds what the arms can absorb, a backup system called the Emergency Crush Core, which is an aluminum honeycomb structure, can compress to dissipate the excess energy.
SpaceX's new Brilliant Solution on Starship Landing Legs: Falcon 9 Legs
The legs themselves are both lightweight and strong. Inside, precision-cut grooves allow the deployment arms to nest snugly when the legs are stowed against the rocket body. Each leg weighs about half a metric ton, so managing their movement carefully is critical. That’s where the pushers come in. These are smaller actuators located near the base of the main arms. Their role is to give the legs a gentle outward push at the start of the deployment sequence. Contrary to popular belief, Falcon 9’s legs don’t extend using motors. They drop into place using gravity. The pushers simply initiate the motion, while the main arms guide and stabilize the descent to prevent any sudden jarring or misalignment.