For some time soon, maybe next year, SpaceX will try to fly back one of his huge Starship Rockets from Low-Earth Orbit to his launch platform in southern Texas. A successful return and catch at the launch tower would demonstrate an important capacities that underlie the hope of Elon Musk on a fully reusable rocket.
To make this happen, SpaceX must overcome the tyranny of Geography. In contrast to launches about the open ocean from Cape Canaveral, Florida, Rockets who leave Zuid -Texas have to follow a narrow corridor to stay the way of the falling land mass.
All 10 of the rocket test flights have so far been launched from Texas to Spatdowns in the Indian or the Pacific. On these routes, the rocket never completes a full track around the earth, but instead a arch path flies through the space before gravity pulls it back into the atmosphere.
If the next two test flights from Starship are good, SpaceX will probably try to send the soon-to-debut third-generation version of the Rocket all the way to a job with a low earth. The Starship V3 vehicle will measure 171 feet (52.1 meters) long, a few feet more than the current configuration of Starship. The entire rocket, including the super heavy booster, has a height of 408 feet (124.4 meters).
Starship, made of stainless steel, is designed for complete reusability. SpaceX has already restored and reflected super heavy boosters, but is not ready to restore the top stage of the rocket until next year, at the fastest.
That is one of the next most important milestones in the development of Starship after reaching an orbital flight. SpaceX will try to bring the ship home to be returned to the launch location by the launch tower in Starbase, Texas, located on the southernmost part of the Texas Gulf Coast near the border between the US and Mexico.
It was always clear that flying a spaceship of a low track to the Starbase to Starbase would require the rocket to fly over Mexico and parts of southern Texas. The rocket launches east about the Gulf of Mexico, so it has to approach Starbase from the west when it comes in for a landing.
